Fragment
by J.A. Carlton
Summary: Something is attacking Dean. As his sanity slips away Sam encounters his own troubles and the root of them, somewhat closer to home than he thought. same story, different summary
1. Chapter 1

Fragment – chpt 1 s.n. fic by: sifi 

Disclaimer: Yeppers... still applies. Love: Yeppers… still applies.

--

Author's note: This story WILL get confusing at times… I PROMISE…

**A word of CONTENT warning, (the least of which are some season 2 spoilers). The most of which are that… there are moments in this fic that could be considered a departure from my norm… so please…consider yourself warned.**

I'm also going to say this here and now before I forget to say it at all: Thank You Nevermore for allowing me to subject you regularly to one of the dark-ish boxes in my brain… You allowed me to inundate you with… this… and made sure to remind me that there was a genuine story in there somewhere… Thank You. :D

Now let's begin if you please….

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_Got a itch… can't get it… nose itches… gonna kiss a fool… heh heh… maybe if I scootch down just a… little… ah… ah… oh yeah… that's good… heh… yeah… _he smiled, his eyes closed against the bright lights. _damned itchy nose…_ he grinned and rubbed the tip of it against his shoulder again, almost preemptively, he knew it would start itching again the instant he relaxed and got himself comfortable.

_snug as a bug in a rug… I'm a givin' myself a great big hug… heh… hug therapy… sheeyah… cause ain't nothing a hug can't cure… except…no man… don't go there… oh god the door's opening… the screaming… I can't take it anymore… no more screaming please! I can't listen to him anymore… it's not my fault… really… NO one could want to live like that… I couldn't let it happen… nope… nada.. nyet.. nunca… nil… no freakin' way was I gonna… uh uh…_he shook his head from side to side, slowly it became a rocking motion and he was on the floor. Soon the meds kicked in and he gave in to chemistry, the problem was that no one else knew what came to his head while he dreamed, and no one could save him from those dreams like he'd saved so many from their own nightmares.

He saw it all happening over and over again, every time sleep took him he lived those horrible moments, watching that cloud of living dark dust descend, watching Sammy first trying to run from it while he blasted the thing with rock salt, watching in horror as Sam tripped, then his own fall onto and over his little brother. The subsequent slide on his backside while still firing the sawed off at that cloud, then Sammy screaming.

That was the sound that spider-webbed the safety glass of his world.

The first cube fell out when Sammy turned to look at him with those churning oily yellow eyes and smirked tauntingly, "Happy birthday to me…"

"No…" he'd hear himself whisper aghast, then his throat would close even as he screamed out, "He belongs to ME! YOU CAN'T HAVE HIM!" and he would rise to his feet, the shotgun in hand, the barrel inches away from his baby brother's chest as he cocked it.

"…kill me… kill Sammy…"

Every instinct he had was telling him to stop, every muscle strained for him to pull that shotgun away from his brother, to let go the trigger and find another way 'cause somehow, something was wrong with the shells inside…

--

"Come on dude… talk to me… please…" John's hand reached over and cupped his eldest sons' face, "I can't lose you too… please Dean… don't leave me alone in all this… don't you want us to be together again? Like it used to be?" he asked despite the faint tremor in his voice.

Dean pressed his cheek into his father's hand, "Yeah dad… you know I do… it's all I've wanted since Sammy went to school…" his eyes began to swim, "…but it can't be like that again… without Sammy… we can't go back to the way things were… we both know that…"

"I know…" John swallowed hard and nodded, "I know it can't son… but we still have each other…and if you don't get through this… well we don't even have that…now do we?" he nodded again sniffing back his tears.

"He was possessed dad… the shells were filled with rock salt… I loaded them myself… don't make me see this… don't make me live this again dad…please…" his voice fell to a pleading whisper.

John shook his head, "It was consecrated iron buckshot Dean… how could you not know which shells you loaded into the shotgun!?" his voice rose and his mouth turned down, his lips still trembling while his eyes finally overflowed.

"I loaded the rocksalt shells… blame that yellow eyed son of a bitch that took him over…" Dean tried to explain.

"You shot your brother with buckshot! It tore his chest apart Dean! All the kings horses and all the kings men couldn't put Sammy together again!" John screamed at his oldest boy.

"I LOADED THE ROCKSALT SHELLS!" Dean screamed.

--

"Dean? Wake up man…" Sam muttered from across the room, tossing one of his pillows hard at his big brother. For days now Sam hadn't been able to get a good night's sleep, Dean was tossing and turning, mumbling and protesting incoherently something he claimed he didn't remember come morning. Sam was actually starting to believe him, his patented puppy-dog pout would've had Dean giving it up by now if he remembered anything.

The lack of rest was starting to show in his big brother's eyes and the way he carried himself. His step was heavier and his enthusiasm duller, but what they'd been through… _Oh just another year in paradise for the men of the Winchester family! We need to catch a break… something… well okay Kaitlyn helped… helped me… I know Dean hasn't been wild about this whole…someone in my head thing… and that creepy ass s.o.b. getting in there didn't help anything either… but yeah, okay… Dean needs a break… maybe I should call Lau…oh… right…I hope for his sake she's okay… maybe I could try to find her for him… or suggest we try finding her together again… who knows… with what Kaitlyn helped me with so far… maybe I could sense her somehow…_ with those good intentions circling his head Sam's mind drifted easily back to sleep while his big brother lay on his side, his eyes wide open, unsure if he could trust himself to be seeing his baby brother sleeping in the bed across the room.

_Is it really him? But it was sooo damned real! I heard the bubbles through his blood… _slowly Dean sat up looking hard at Sam. He fisted his eyes until he saw stars then stared again, willing himself to see through the hallucination.

He grasped the pillow that had woken him up and strode to the other bed, his heart pounding in his throat so that if he'd had any wetness to swallow, he couldn't have anyway. _Is that really you Sammy?_ he thought watching the steady rise and fall of his chest, hearing his comforting breathing.

He sat on the edge of his bed and rubbed his head then rose again, this time he laid the pillow next to Sam's head, then drew the covers over his knobby feet and tucked him in.

"Mmm?" Sam grunted kicking Dean's hand away and sticking his toes back out from beneath the comforter. The instant of physical contact was enough. Dean was satisfied. It had just been another dream. _Thank God for favors man…I just wish they'd stop… I can't take much more of this._

Standing at the foot of Sam's bed Dean turned his head and looked at his own, it looked like he'd just had one hell of a raucous all nighter, _maybe I should just go hit a bar and find a quick hookup… Laura would understand…yeah SHE would but… heh…I wouldn't …I don't want anyone else… sorry junior the girl you want is nowhere to be found, you're on bread and water buddy boy…_ he groaned and booted up the laptop while making the first pot of coffee for the day.

_If I can't find us a job maybe Sam won't mind if I start looking for her again…maybe he could even use some of what Kaitlyn taught him… see if he can sense her… I mean she does kinda have some… thing going on… that's what those scans said anyway… parts of her brain that are dormant in folks like us… well probably more like me than Sam… are wide awake and waving at the world in hers right? Right… he's got to be able to sense something._

--

"Sam"  
"Dean?" they said together over Sam's second cup of coffee.

"Dude…" Dean shook his head smiling wryly.

Sam grinned openly and shook his head as well, "I know… we just can't seem to shake it…" he was talking about the synch they'd fallen into. It didn't happen all the time but it was happening so much more frequently now, that both of them wondered exactly why and what was the genuine cause of it.

They'd noticed it during the Turnbull case, and though like all brothers with the same upbringing and on the same mission, relatively speaking, they were often on the same wavelength. However, between Sam's efforts to actively control his psychic abilities, and Dean's forays into parallel realms and or the times and lives of ancient deities, both men were starting to wonder if perhaps these jobs, these… events… moments of exposure or … whatever one could call them, might be serving a purpose they couldn't yet quite begin to fathom. Or was it just random?

"Tell me about it…" Dean muttered swallowing a big gulp of coffee and asking, "… so… what?" while he kept his eyes focused on the information on the computer screen.

"What what?" Sam asked and shook his head quickly remembering after spying Dean's spocked eyebrow, "Oh yeah… I think we should try to find Laura again," he blurted.

"That's what I was gonna say… did you have a vision?" Dean asked finally peeling his eyes away from the computer screen and the police report that detailed what was left behind in her car when it was found deserted.

Sam shook his head, his hand hovering over the last Boston cream donut while Dean eyed him, practically daring him to take it. With a smile and a shake of his head he settled on the chocolate cake and bit into it while Dean nodded unspoken and simple thanks.

"No… but you've been having nightmares Dean," he said around a mouthful of carb-o-liciousness, "Whether you remember them or not… you've been having 'em… I mean seriously all you have to do is look at your bed in the morning… looks like you're some kind of lazy Deuce Bigalow banging the buxom or…"

Both of Deans eyebrows tried to grab his hairline while his mouth dropped into a small 'o', "Alright whoa! Whoa, whoa, whoa right there! Dude… first off… I am NOT lazy… especially not in bed! Second, I'm a helluva lot better lookin than that guy!, hence I'd make a helluva LOT more money than him... and lastly…" he paused more for effect as he cocked a trademark smile and wagged his finger toward Sam's expectant expression, "…you're right… I don't need to be psychic to read the evidence…" he pointed to the disaster area he called his bed for the last few nights.

"Dean…" Sam looked at him, met his eyes then looked down. Never a good sign, and always a sign that he was about to ask something difficult.

"Oh God… what?"

Sam started, then stopped, then started again while watching his brothers face, they'd come through so much in the last year and a half, if he couldn't be honest now, Sam would start to think the bond he felt they'd been forging was a lie.

"Sam? What?" Dean asked reading his brothers uncertainty in his expression.

"Couple questions…"

"Ooohh kay."

"This… these nightmares… this isn't some other kind of Aaron Beyers thing and you're just trying to hide it from me? Or well protect me from it? right? It's not that right? I promised I wouldn't ask you about it and I haven't and I won't… I just need to know that it's not something you're trying to protect me from…" he asked, a hint of the little boy he'd once been shining through.

Dean grinned at the image of Sam as a kid, he'd been cute and with those dimples the scams they'd pulled! Man… sometimes Dean wondered how they managed to NOT land themselves in Juvie.

"Are you kidding me Sam?" he asked watching him shake his head, "No dude… nothing like that… I swear…" which was the truth, at least enough truth for Dean to convince himself it wasn't a lie.

Sam had said, 'questions' plural so he gestured, 'gimme', "What else Sammy?"

Sam shook his head, "I'm… not even sure where to start…"

"Pick a place…" he suggested.

"You pick…" Sam sipped his coffee.

Dean frowned just a little, "…and our categories are?"

"Your nightmares, the content of them…Dad, Marshall Hall, Layla, Alex Bentley, The Demon, Laura,… me…" he ticked off the choices, counting one on each finger determined to ask at least the most important questions that wouldn't leave him alone in those… maybe too quiet moments with his brother.

--

tbc?

it's a slow moving beginning chapter  
but please R&R anyway.

Thanks, sifi


	2. Chapter 2

Fragment – chpt 2

by: sifi.

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"Dude what'd you do stay up half the night and make a list of interesting topics of discussion to start your day with?" Dean asked, his irritation mild but his curiosity sprouting blossoms.

"No Dean… I'm counting on you to keep my ass alive… so I need you sharp…" Sam recalled a moment from last year, not long after Jess's murder, when he hadn't been sleeping well and been plagued with nightmares. He knew what it felt like to be afraid to go to sleep.

"Well I already told you I don't remember the nightmares… I mean not entirely… just that whatever's going on in here," he tapped the side of his head, "I don't mind telling you… it's freakin' me out… and okay I'm not crazy about not being able to get some quality sleep, course if I had someone…" he stopped and sighed seeing the gentle upturn of Sam's mouth before jumping track and making himself too vulnerable. He had no fear of Sam seeing him hurt, he just couldn't take the look of pain, and the hatred for this life and its repercussions he saw in his baby brother's eyes. _Still, I think he's really seeing all the good we do… I'm glad you're with me Sammy… I'm glad you didn't just take off after Dad… after… Gordon, and Andy, and that creepy s.o.b. that… he shuddered mentally, I'm glad you're still with me._

"You miss them both Dean, I do get it… I still miss dad… I keep expecting text-messaged coordinates… and knowing what little we DO know… that that yellow eyed son of a bitch has plans for me… and all the children like me… I feel guilty as hell…" Sam admitted, not realizing he too needed this catharsis.

"Yeah, well it's gonna be a long road to happy Sam… but we'll make it… long as I've got anything at all to say about it… we'll make it and we'll take that son of a bitch out along the way, you mark my words…" Dean vowed stonily.

Sam nodded, "I miss knowing she's out there for you… just a phone call away y'know?"

Dean nodded and swallowed the catch in his throat, "Yeah well…" he choked, "That's what happens when you get close to people Sam… haven't you been listening over the last year and a half?"

"Dean…" Sam grimaced glimpsing the war going on inside his brother. _In his own way he's just as lonely as Alex Bentley was… at least she filled him up a bit… regular doses… he's like a tire with a slow leak… fill him up every few hundred miles and he's okay, he'll hold._

_  
_"It HAS been a helluva year… and NOT in a good way…I want to find her Sam… Whatever happened… she deserves for someone to know…" he admitted a lot more than Sam thought he might and his surprise showed on his face.

_I've already got one big damn lie I'm hiding from you Sammy… I promised myself I was going to try and let you shoulder a little more… we're not kids anymore, we're all we've got and I'm sure as hell not going to do anything to jeopardize either one of us! Except by keeping that lie…well, yeah I know I'll tell you eventually, I just need the right time… but I made a vow…I gave my word when I thought I could keep it… but the longer I hold onto it… the harder it's going to be for you… you're already too hard on yourself about all this crap anyway…_

"Y'know what I don't get?" Sam started.

"Besides…"

"Don't go there…" Sam chastised with easy good humor and Dean grinned with wiggling eyebrows.

"What?" he asked.

"When Laura was in trouble at the Knee… Cernunnos actually used me to contact you, to help her… if something's wrong, if she was hurt or…" he stalled, watching Dean carefully as he swallowed hard but nodded his head.

"Killed Sam… you can say it… I know it's possible."

Sam nodded, "Killed… Why no… notice? interaction? indication…anything?"

Dean shrugged, "Unless it was her time then there would have been nothing for us TO do, no way we could help or be allowed to interfere…but… and understand… I've got no reason to think this… I'm no shining geek-boy like you, but I don't think she's dead…" he shrugged.

Sam nodded and thought about it, he had to agree with Dean, he didn't think she was dead, but then again, they hadn't known John was either until Bobby called them. _Some psychic I am…_he thought and shook his head. When he next looked there was an expectant expression on his big brother's face, almost like he had a question to ask and for some reason, the idea seemed almost ludicrous to Sam. He raised an eyebrow, as Dean finished his mouthful of boston cream donut, swallowing it down with his coffee.

_How many cups have you had already today Dean? What time did you get up and make that first pot?_ he wondered having seen the filter and grounds in the garbage can not long after he'd woken up, _…You said you don't remember them entirely… what DO you remember? What are you hiding from me Dean? Please… help me help you._

"So… I'm curious… what do you want to talk about Alex Bentley about?" Dean asked.

"Oooh…" Sam grunted, he hadn't expected that one.

"Ahh huh…" Dean pulled. Sam's mouth opened and snapped shut a couple of times and just as soon as he took in a deep breath, about to explain his question, Dean held up a finger and stopped him, "Alex took a bullet in the back so it didn't hit me… Marshall Hall was targeted so I could be Healed by Roy, Laya was passed over so Roy could heal me… Those are all certainties Sam…" pausing, he took a breath and looked at his little brother, "… Alex said something to me when she was dying…"

"What'd she say?" Sam asked. He'd wondered a couple of times what she might've said in her last moment but Dean hadn't given him any reason to think it was anything of particular importance.

"She said, 'worth it… give you what's left…,'" he confided but somehow, for some reason kept her last five words to himself, _'You have destiny…You're Gold' she said Sam, and she said it to ME…the golden aura'd people…the ones the demons can't feed on…God the things she saw…I wish Laura was here to help me sort it all out…_ he sighed to himself. "…then… remember how she said in her journals that she'd give a piece of herself to someone?" he asked.

Sam nodded.

Dean tried to say it, wondered if he should, then nodded to himself, from what he understood, it wasn't something anyone could change, "I think when she touched my face, just before she died… So help me God Sammy if you make a joke about this I'm gonna…"

Sam shook his head, his eyebrows furrowed, "I won't Dean…what?"

Dean sighed, "I think she gave me the last of herself."

"Excuse me?" Sam asked uncertainly, "What like you've got a chunk of some dead chick running around in your head?"

"I don't think it's like that…" Dean started as a knock sounded on the door. He furrowed his eyebrows at Sam and looked out the peephole. He opened the door and looked left and right down the front of the motel but didn't see anyone. He closed the door and turned to Sam who sat watching him curiously, "I thought I heard a knock…"

"Probably next door or something… so dead chick in your head…" Sam pressed as Dean sat back down.

"No it's not like that… not from what I figured from her journals anyway… it's kind of… more of a… certainty…" he struggled then shrugged, _It's like that whole concept that nothing is real, nothing is solid, nothing is exactly where we think it is until OUR perception actually fixes its position… that whole Heisenberg uncertainty principle that they've actually managed to prove … aaaarrrrgghhhh! Damn you Laura! Sammy'll think I flipped my NUT if I even try to explain it to him…_

"I don't know man… it's like the whole, there's a reason I'm not allowed to be dead yet and you want honesty little brother? I think it's because I made a promise! As long as I'm around nothing bad's gonna happen to you… and I mean to keep that promise…" _Liar…_Dean castigated himself, _cause if destiny is irrefutable and unalterable then I'd be dead… Nothing anyone could have done… not even Laura's 'influence' could have saved me that night IF destiny wasn't malleable, if we didn't create it ourselves… at least in part... He hoped Sam would buy his simplistic explanation. He practically freaked when I used the word antithetical how's he gonna react if I start trying to explain that apparently it's the energy of thought…Damn you Laura… really… I love you honey but the crap you poured into my head… oh God Woman the doors you pushed me through!_ Dean groaned inwardly but felt the smile on his face. She had exposed him to these theories and concepts, discussing them passionately with him as if he was some kind of college professor or something. While she never pretended to _really_ understand the whole of it, when it came to what she _did_ understand, she never once seemed to think that he might not be able to follow. As a result of that faith in him, Dean had found he rather enjoyed contemplating what parts of quantum physics he could wrap _his_ mind around.

--

"Dean… son… you have to come to terms with this… I know you didn't do it intentionally… We ALL know it was an accident… you just loaded the wrong shells…" John said softly while wiping his son's overlong hair out of his eyes and away from his sweaty brow.

Dean had just woken up from another nightmare, the screams that tore out of his throat sent John's blood curdling in his body. This son, this one person was all that was left of his world, and he was falling apart before his eyes.

As long as he lived he'd never forget walking in on his first born son that day. Dean hadn't been answering his cell for days, he hadn't come out of his motel room, hadn't ordered in, hadn't made a phone call, hadn't turned on a light. If it hadn't been for the do not disturb sign on the doorknob, housekeeping might have thought no one had taken the room at all. But John knew his son, he knew Dean had grown up with his little brother as his only genuine possession. Guns came and went, knives shattered, bows needed replacing, rocksalt burned and even cars sometimes were killed, but Sam… Sam was his constant. The puppy he'd always wanted, and unlike most children who begged for a puppy and neglected to feed it or care for it or walk it… Dean had been diligent. He'd raised and trained that puppy of his with infinite patience that spoke of a nature far too evolved for a child of four.

John still wondered occasionally if Dean had really seen what he claimed to have seen, or if the knowledge he'd bestowed on his eldest had pushed him over the edge, and like the urban legend about some sleepy mother who stuffs her crying child into the oven early Thanksgiving morning instead of putting the turkey in there, had he loaded the buckshot shells subconsciously? Had he killed his little brother? His puppy rather than face the task of re-making fate? Had he found it Just Too Much?

John held his sons' head in his hands and pressed his lips to his clammy forehead.

"Dad?" Dean's voice scratched as he came slowly back from whatever hell his mind cast him into on a regular basis.

_Oh God the innocence in that voice… the trust… I can hear the child within him_, "Yes son?" he shuddered holding his son's head to him.

"It's okay dad…" Dean muttered but wasn't really sure it would be.

John held him away from himself, his eyes and nose running in time, his fingers looping under the straps that bound his son's arms against his body, making certain he could never hurt himself again.

John smiled tightly, his lips trembling even as he drew his arm across his eyes, wiping the tears away.

"It will be son… it will be…" he nodded balling his fingers into a tight fist that struck his oldest boy like a hammer blow, bone at the outer rim of the eye socket folded beneath the force of the blow and John heard the whiplash crackling of his son's neck popping, several vertebrae in succession.

Dean's head whipped halfway over his shoulder and as his body fell backward onto the quilted padding of his room he thought, _It's okay dad…it's okay…_

--

tbc

please R&R,  
things pick up a bit in chapter 3… I promise.

Thanks sifi


	3. Chapter 3

Fragment – chpt 3 - s.n. fic.  
by: sifi 

--

"Dean?... Come on Dean… wake up now…"

The voice was slow and muddy in his ears and he felt the cool leathery-ness of cats' paws playing percussion against his cheeks.

"Mnhgh…" he shook his head and could've sworn he'd raised his hand to smack that damned cat away but it just kept plying its mouse-ing skills against his face, _G'way…hate… cold…dark…dad…hit..._

"Come on man… wake up! Please!"

_…Rocksalt!_ "Rocksalt shells!" he barked though his eyes were only starting to flutter open, _Mmm something's wrong… damned freakin' nightmare… dad didn't hit us…what the fuh…?_

"Dean!" cut through his altered consciousness and his eyes opened, locked onto the blue-greens next to him and crinkled when he saw what he was certain, was blood at the corner of that lemon-puckered, worried mouth.

"Sam? What's the matter with you? I was finally getting some sleep aaaaassss hole!" he groused frowning, not caring at the moment why his little brother was bleeding. _Well that's not right…_ he thought rolling onto his side, feeling obvious hardness under his elbow as he tried to tuck his arm under his head which began to pound, _musta really tied one on last night… my freakin' head is killing me!_ he moaned feeling halfheartedly around him for the blankets but unable to find them.

"DEAN!" Sam's voice ripped into his ear and he felt himself hoisted into a seated position, "Son of a bitch I don't know what the fu...DEAN!... there better not be another slice of demon in your head you Big Freakin' Jerk!" he shook his brother violently, wrapped his hands around his neck and swiftly slapped him as hard as he dared.

"Sammy whafa!" Dean snapped, his eyes popping wide now as his fists clutched his baby brother's t-shirt, one of them getting him into position and the other pulling back for a punch.

"Go ahead Dean! Go right the hell ahead as long as you keep your God Damned eyes open!" Sam yelled furiously into his face.

_What the hell's the matter with him?_ he wondered getting a good look at Sam's furrowed brows, that pursed old-lady mouth he got when he was really disturbed and the light of relief that shone from his eyes, _Oh God he wants to hug!_

"Okay… I give…" Dean mumbled looking around and scratching his head. _Ow!_ he winced feeling a goose-egg on the rise at the back of his skull. The table was strewn with papers, coffee and donuts, the laptop was whirring away, his chair was laying on its back and just above his head, his bed still looked like a hurricane hit it. "Sam… what's goin' on?" he asked letting go of Sammy's shirt and feeling himself fall backwards as if he had no control. Thankfully Sam had good reflexes. He pulled his older brother into himself, looping his arms around his torso and lifted him to his feet, hoping that as soon as he got him up he'd be able to un-spaghetti himself.

"Sam!" Dean croaked feeling himself going down again even as he clutched at Sam's shoulders.

"Son of a bitch!" Sam cursed, grabbing him once again, holding him tight to his chest while he maneuvered them around so he could deposit Dean on the bed.

"I don't know Dean! You tell me!" Sam snapped angry and fearful at once as he sat him down and pulled a chair up just in case he started to fall over, but it looked like he was starting to come back enough to hold himself up, at least in a seated position.

"Tell you what? What time did I start drinkin' dude? Why's my head feel like I tried to run it through a jukebox?" he asked while fingering the lump that was still growing.

"That's probably from where you cracked it on the floor… and you weren't drinking, and its still today… you've been out for about twenty minutes… well, not exactly out…" Sam huffed. He was running his fingers through his hair almost continually, _The way he just… flip! bang! down! does it have something to do with the nightmares? Was there some kind of spillover from the Thomas Wayne thing? What if something got… communicated? What if there's something in him? _he wondered while scrubbing his face with his hands.

He felt warmth on his shoulder and looked into those eyes that kept him on an even keel, the same ones that always let him know he was home, no matter where they were, and that voice that always warned away the monsters spoke, "You tell me what happened and I'll tell you what I remember… not that it's much… hell…it's probably just lack of sleep catching up with me…" he smiled but neither of them believed it.

"Don't Dean… don't try and gloss this over… you scared the crap out of me man…" Sam sighed with a huff and a tight smile.

Dean pointed to Sam's mouth, "I do that?"

Sam fingered the tear in his mouth and waved his brother's concern away, there were more important issues here than a love-tap between siblings.

"Sorry dude…" Dean shrugged and frowned, "… okay so what happened?"

--

"…and you were screaming… at the top of your lungs… 'I loaded the rocksalt shells!'… it was creepy Dean… you scared the crap out of me…" Sam shook his head.

"Yeah you said that…" Dean blanched and scrubbed his face, he'd regained all his motor control during Sam's abbreviated telling of events and begun to pace the room. His cup on the table caught his eye and he leaned, reaching for it but Sam was up in a flash snagging it from his hands, "Yeah, let's just say you've had enough of that for now huh?"

"Screw you!" Dean sneered reaching for the cup back but to his chagrin Sam was faster, and used his longer stride to dump what was left of the brew down the sink in the bathroom, "Sam! don't be a mother hen!"

"Dean you had a POT of coffee before I got up this morning… you've been up for God only knows how long, and for how many nights you've been pretending you're sleeping but you're really laying there terrified to close your eyes!" Sam argued.

"Oh thank you very much Mr. Empath! That a nifty trick your new 'psychic' friend taught you? How to read me without perMISSION!" Dean snapped.

Sam shook his head and swallowed hard, ripping the cap off a bottle of water which he handed to Dean, "No man…"

"Then what? You laying there watching me try to sleep or something?" he asked, still angry but just a little less so.

Again Sam shook his head and flashed a quick pained smile, "No… I just remember how it feels to lay awake all night, afraid of what you might see when you close your eyes… I lived it for months remember?"

Dean's anger washed through him, spilling out onto the floor, yes, he remembered. He remembered how frightened he'd been for Sam's welfare in those first few months after Jess, when they were looking for dad. He remembered telling him he just couldn't keep up that level of anger, of hate and vengeance that it was going to burn him out, it was going to kill him. Shamed, he hung his head, "Yeah, I remember… but I don't have any reason to be having nightmares…"

Sam choked on his own water, the fluid running down the wrong pipe as he gasped until he was purple, waving off Dean's bone bruising pounding on his back.

"Oka... m'okay…" he finally croaked after several long and scary minutes.

"You sure?" Dean finally asked.

Sam nodded but set the water down, "Dean we both have more reason for nightmares than pretty much the population of this entire county! I mean just the fact that the demon nearly tore you apart wearing our father's face is reason enough…" Sam reminded him.

Dean nodded however reluctantly that Sam might be right, "Yeah… but it wasn't dad Sam… we all know that…"

"We may know it in our heads… what do you mean all know? Who's ALL?" Sam asked suddenly.

Dean frowned with his mouth, "Dude it's a figure of speech… and don't go all psych 101 on me Sam… I get what you're saying… getting exploded from the inside by some demonic puppet master wearing your father's face… it's a little traumatic… I'll give you that…" he acquiesced, all this rationality knocking Sam off guard even though he continued, "but you know what man? Seriously… with all the shit we've been through since then… do you really think I'm NOT over it?" he asked.

Sam half-nodded, his frown still half there, "Yeah but Dean… it's only been a couple months since we lost dad… without dad, there's no chance left for any kind of resolution."

Dean stopped pacing and looked at his little brother with a spocked eyebrow, "Well… that's not entirely true dude… there is one way…" he started then shook his head, "Nah, never mind…"

"What?" Sam asked curiously, half wondering if he was serious or if he was setting him up for one of his patented 'back-off' patronizations.

"It's stupid Sam… forget it…"

_Yep it's a setup… what's the joke Dean? You wanna slow dance? You wanna cry on my shoulder? What?_ he sighed within himself but on the off chance that Dean was sincere he'd open himself up to whatever ridicule may come. For his brother… what wouldn't he do? "Dean?" he pressed hoping he'd find a way to exorcise his internal demons, if he was sincere, the least Sam could do was listen.

Dean looked at him, his expression almost the same as the one he'd had at Bobby's after they salted and burned John's body, his eyes transparent windows for his pain to look out at the world through, wishing it could melt into the sunlight beyond his dark interior, and his face almost daring to believe he might find some kind of solace. _You can help me Sammy… I know exactly how you can help me…_

He looked deep into those blue-greens he knew so well, his hands fell onto his shoulders where they joined with his neck and he felt something inside that needed to be set free. His fingers closed around his little brother's throat in a vise grip, just long enough to shift his weight and throw Sam across the room and into the wall. His head connected with the plaster but didn't quite make the satisfying thump Dean was looking for.

Sam was already almost on his feet as Dean's stride carried him across the room, he buckled his left knee and shot his right into Sam's gut while his fist connected with his jaw. There was no doubt the younger Winchester was stunned, he hadn't uttered a word, Dean hadn't given him time.

Beneath his weight something in Sam's chest seemed to give a little. He felt his lips pull into a smile as his right fist connected once more with his baby brother's jaw and his knee ground into his belly. The grin broadened when his left fist connected, and he felt like his head was going to split wide open as the right connected again.

He didn't know how long he kept it up but when he lost the enjoyment of beating the life out of his brother, his hands were covered in blood halfway up the forearms, much of it had already clotted and dried. He looked down at the Picasso of flesh, cartilage, exposed bone, and bloody pulp that was somehow still breathing. He ran his gluey fingers into the longish dark waves, curling them into a fist yet again as he jerked the head left then right, inspecting his handiwork.

He nodded to himself and rose to his feet, the rattling in Sam's chest unheard as he patted what was left of the young man's cheek and headed to the bathroom, "That's my boy…" he smirked as the water ran hot and hard over his hands, a song came into his head and he started to sing softly to himself, "…I think I"ll go for a walk outside now, the summer sun's calling my name…" and once the blood was gone from his hands and arms, though residue remained under his fingernails, he slung his jacket on and headed for the impala.

--

Light was pouring into the motel window from the wrong side when Sam finally reached the bedside table, his hand dragging one of the cell phones to the floor to him. He felt the buttons, he dialed 911 knowing full well he could give them nothing. They would triangulate his position and they would come. It was all he could do. _Thank God Dean took the impala… they can't find our stuff if it's not here… I'll find a way to explain the crap in our bags…Dean… why? What'd I do? Dean… what's wrong with you?... Christ Dean… I think you killed me…_

--

tbc.

Please R&R… let me know what you're thinking... please.

thanks sifi


	4. Chapter 4

Fragment – chpt 4

by:sifi.

--

"… I knew he was there…"

"How?"

"I just KNEW! He's my son!... I know him better than anyone on this planet!" John barked angrily.

"Okay… so you've likened Sam to a puppy on several occasions… at least where your eldest is concerned…"

"Mmm hmm," John nodded. He knew this was some of the rigamarole he'd have to go through to get those unsupervised visits with his son back, especially after he'd let his temper and pain get the best of him last time. He couldn't control himself, and he knew he had as many issues as Dean did, if not more… _God knows I've lived a lot longer that's for sure!_ he'd punched his son, decked him as if they were bar brawling rather than Dean being handicapped by a straightjacket and more drugs than John would ever learn to pronounce. He'd decked his boy and given him whiplash, _Let's face it John… you were lucky you didn't break his freakin' neck you shithead!_ he berated himself.

"Okay… so you knew he was there… and you…."

"I jimmied the lock," John admitted shaking his head unable to dam the tears that flowed whenever he thought about what he'd stumbled into that horrible gut-wrenching day. The room stank of rotten meat barely covering a thick, dark odor of blood that was clotted and heavy in the back of his nose, "… I couldn't stop gagging… the scent was so strong… Oh God don't make me see this again! Please… I can't take it…" he choked pressing his face into his hands.

"Where was he John? When you found him?"

_The bathroom… the bathroom… oh god the freakin' bathroom… sprawled… painted… oh God…how did he do it? How COULD he do it? How could anyone do such…a freakin' obscenity! that's what it was… it was obscene!_ he remembered the sight.

"Tell me John… let it out… it'll help…"

He looked up into those eyes, so filled with compassion, so liquid and soft on his, he swallowed hard nearly gagging on his own spit, "He… he was in the bathroom… he was leaning against the far wall… the floor… the floor was… Oh God… there wasn't an inch of it that wasn't covered in blood… I didn't notice right then… but the carpeting by the door… it was soaked through… it squished when I stepped on it…and he… and he was… uhm… he was in his shorts… and I thought… Oh God…" John shook his head, the image of his first blessing's skin, the leaf-like flaps curling upward in almost a mosaic on every visible patch of skin, and there wasn't much of him that wasn't visible to John when he'd arrived. "…and he had the blade in his hand… he was still… I don't know how…" John choked and sobbed, "I don't know how he was still alive!" he hollered pounding his fist against his thigh and the arm of the couch at the same time. His head shook side to side in a tearful frenzy as he choked on what came next, "…and he looked at me… and… and all he… his eyes… my son with his mother's beautiful eyes… and he looked at me and he just kept saying it…"

"What John? What did he say to you?"

John felt his chest heave as breath stuttered into it, he couldn't stop sobbing, the memory of his first born slumped against tattered ribbons of his own flesh, the eyes that pleaded with him, that begged him for something, the ones that transmitted that awful sense of helplessness, "No please… I can't…he said… 'I can't feel dad… I keep trying to feel something…"

--

Dean looked again, _Yep… that's about as subtle as a sledgehammer sweetheart… but the way I'm feelin'… heh… I'll take it…_ he smiled, lifted his glass and glanced at the stool beside the cute little redhead that had just bought him a drink. She nodded and watched him walk to her with his drink in hand.

"Thanks… can I return the favor?" he asked motioning to her half empty glass.

"Sure… Irish coffee…" she smiled letting her eyes slide over him.

Dean could feel her gaze touch his skin beneath his t-shirt, her fingers cool and slick against the heat of his chest and as he sat, he could feel her against him, pressing herself to him, her lips at his neck, just below the ear, in that one spot that sent him crazy hot at the corner of Neck and Jawbone. He felt her teeth graze him there and blinked as his breath caught in his throat, he realized she was fully clothed and they were still on their stools, inside the bar. They hadn't even given each other names yet.

--

"Oh yeah… that's right…just…right there…Oh God that feels…"

"Perfect…" she sighed into his ear.

"Almost… how're you doin' sweetheart?... You gettin' there yet?" he grinned puckering his lips against her jaw while his hips thrust against her, his hands, each one full of perfect porcelain warmth spread her, touched her, caressed her as he filled her. He felt his knuckles scrape against the brick wall behind her and didn't care. She was tight and hot and all his for the moment. She was exactly what he needed in this darkened stairwell behind the bar, dirty and just a little dangerous, just enough possibility that they might get caught for it to be a crazy hot turn on. Dean thought about it, he thought about someone hearing something and coming down the rickety aluminum stairs. He thought about someone watching him hold this little piece of alabaster goddess against the wall, someone watching his hips beat into her, someone, anyone seeing them and watching them together while she squirmed atop him panting and breathless. And he thought about pulling his gun while he was still inside this little figurine, he thought about the look on this unknown person's face when they saw him swing the muzzle toward him or her, and he thought about how good it was going to feel to squeeze that trigger like that little goddess was squeezing him inside her, and with every squeeze of his finger his hips would beat in time and he would shoot himself into her until neither of them could stand anymore.

--

"I'm looking for Sam Winchester… I was told he was brought in late this afternoon… apparently he'd been attacked? I'm his sister in-law… was my husband with him? Dean? 6 foot 1… sandy colored hair… cut short…"

The receptionist looked at the woman before her, her eyes flicked to her left hand noting the plain gold band on the 4th finger. She was dressed in Scooby Doo scrubs under her windbreaker and the receptionist felt a moment of sympatico, still, she shook her head.

"I'm sorry Mrs. Winchester apparently just your brother in-law was brought in... no one else has come in either," she winced with her smile, "I'm sorry."

Laura shook her head, "Where's Sam now?" she asked.

"Just a sec…" she smiled and found what she was looking for on the computer, "He's back in the ICU now… I should warn you… even though you've probably seen your fair share…" she started.

Laura nodded, "Trust me… I've seen MORE than that… where?"

The receptionist pointed to the bank of elevators just down the hall, "5th floor," she said.

"Thanks," Laura sighed dashing down the corridor. _Sometimes it pays to be a nurse, not often anymore, but sometimes,_ she thought tapping her foot and trying hard not to play with the Celtic knot that usually sat atop her finger. She wasn't sure being in the medical field would be enough so she'd slid the ring onto the appropriate finger of the left hand and figured a little lie wasn't going to hurt anyone. She smirked looking at the true underside of the ring, _it really does look like a wedding band,I would have married you Dean... it's a shame you never asked…_ as the elevator door opened for her.

She wiped the tears from her eyes and cheeks with the palms of her hands then laid her cheek against the back of Sam's hand. No matter that she knew exactly what each machine he was hooked to was for, what it did, and how it was going to help him in the long run, she couldn't make sense of any of it.

"Sammy… what happened? Who did this to you? Where was Dean?" she asked and though she expected no answer, and certainly did not receive one, she knew she couldn't leave his side. Dean wouldn't leave him and neither would she. Wherever he was, he was probably on the trail of the son of a bitch that hurt his brother. _I swear to God honey sometimes you're so much like your father… kill first… heal later…_she thought while stroking Sam's hand.

His head and face was heavily bandaged, the tell-tale amber of betadine staining his skin where she could see it. He was going to be heavily scarred that was for sure. She could see bits of 4-0 Ethilon peeking out in places, sticking straight through the dressings in others. The surgeons had been efficient, they hadn't been worried about aesthetics, that was for plastics later. _Fortunately I know a few good plastic surgeons_ she thought marveling that he was still alive at all.

Whoever had attacked him had not just broken ribs, they'd bruised his heart. One of his ribs had actually snapped at its attachment to the thoracic vertebrae and somehow, perhaps in his crawl to get to the phone and get some help, it shifted, the jagged end turning somehow and impaling his left kidney. Though they'd tried while they had him on the table, they couldn't save the kidney and had been forced to remove it.

"Whatever did this to you sweetie… Dean'll get it… don't you worry about that… then he'll come and when you open your eyes again, he'll be the first person you see… I promise you Sam…" she sniffed and chuckled, petting and stroking his arm and hand, "and I'll be the second one you see… mascara stripes and everything… they say the stuff's waterproof but no one's quite figured out how to make it tear- proof yet," she sniffed again, her long practiced eyes flicking over the vitals, checking the numbers, making sure everything was as it should be.

--

"Laura?" Dean asked, the sheer surprise in his voice snapping her awake.

He was standing in the doorway looking at her, his disbelief clear for the world to see.

"Hi honey… did you get it?" she asked softly, rising to her feet and moving into his arms.

"What're you doing here?" he asked squeezing her shoulders then holding her at arms' length, searching her features for answers.

"I was working an ER dispatch rotation… I heard the call go out and traced the number… I was so scared for you both…" she explained.

He looked past her, his eyes filled and he moved into the room, his breath choking in his throat, "No… this can't be…" he shook his head.

"Honey…" she stepped to his side, a hand on his back as a sob shook him.

"No… this can't be Sammy… I won't let it!" he turned and looked into the sympathy he saw on her face, in her eyes, "No Laura! You don't understand! I won't let it be my brother!..." he pressed his lips together until they disappeared while transparent pearls slid down his face shamelessly.

"He'll survive Dean…that's what's important…" she cupped his cheek and he pressed himself into the palm of her hand. He turned his head, his lips caressed her skin and he pulled her against him then sat beside his brother with what used to be his in his lap.

--

Red, viscous images full of molten rage played inside him. He closed his fists, he felt hair in his hands matting within the clots of blood and skin, he felt the blows coming from him, he knew they were his, the force, the rhythm, the joy of running his fingers through someone else's details, the hot-slick that thickened and grew sticky as it cooled while his hands slid between the layers,_ It's like skinning a chicken… I bet if I turned on the light the connective tissue would have that same milky-white satin look to it…heh, yeah, I bet it would… how the hell is he gonna live? How the hell is he still alive? God Dad… I tried… so help me… I tried but I can't live with this inside me anymore… and I can't run the risk… no… I can't… but it should've worked! And aww Sammy, I'm sorry dude…but I just… I just… Dad you never should've told me! This is your fault you son of a bitch! I hate you for this… I'll hate you forever for this dad…you filthy stinking coward! always leaving it up to me to take care of Sam…You piss-rotten whore monger… god you make me sick… you make me want to…do what I have to… Thanks Dad._

Dean rolled over and turned on the bedside light, he knew Laura could sleep pretty much through anything, and tonight was no exception. _In fact you might say she's dead to the world…aw but that would just be a really bad pun wouldn't it honey?_ he thought stroking her cheek, noting how dry her blood was now. He turned his head to the side, his greens looking into the dark browns he knew would never see anything again. _But you always saw the best in me sweetheart… thank you for that… I'm sorry you had to die too but someone has to… and you'd never let me finish the job…_

As he rose and stripped off his shorts, his right side covered in a stiff layer of dried Laura, he flicked a breadcrumb trail of flakes to the shower where he scrubbed himself clean before dressing and making his way to the hospital, to his brother, the feel of tearing flesh and bone still vibrating in his hands, singing along his nervous system as he drove, the erotic purr of the impala's engine pulsing beneath him like a woman about to come. He smiled softly putting her in park and pressed his foot down hard on the pedal, relishing the choppy thrum that made him wince with the ecstasy of restraint. Slowly he let the image of his hands sinking into his brother's broken flesh, perhaps squeezing the life out of him, everything evil loved to choke Sammy anyway… maybe he should see what the fun was all about, _but I'm doing this to save the world! To SAVE my baby brother… I'm not evil… I'm not…_he thought pressing his hand to his crotch and loosening the pinch his jeans were causing.

--

"Guah!Nah!" he grunted shaking his head, feeling literally beside himself, feeling as if he didn't really fit himself yet.

"Dean?" that soft voice he knew so well yanked him home.

His eyes came open and he looked into crystalline concern written plainly on his little brother's face above him.

Images came back to him, blood, bone shattering, crushing splut and ooze. Warm touched his shoulder as he looked at Sam's tentative smile, "Dude you had me scared to death! What the hell just happened?" he asked.

"Nuh! nuh… no…" Dean felt like his eyes were trying to leap from his skull as they darted to the far side of the motel room. The wall was in tact, there was no lake of blood, bone and flesh on the floor. He looked up, the donuts were there, the coffee still in its pot, the computer fan whirring, his bed a disaster area and yet he could still feel the fleshbits under his fingernails, the drying blood pulling out his arm hairs as he flicked and scraped it off.

He slapped Sam's hand away, his own quaking as he did so. He looked into his little brother's concerned face, he saw the blood at the corner of his mouth and none of it made sense.

"Dean what happened? What's wrong with you?" Sam asked, nearly demanded, feeling his heart thumping hard in his chest.

"Get away from me!" Dean spat pointing at Sam who reached for him, "DON'T TOUCH ME!..." he barked, crawling on all fours to the far side of the room, crouching between the door and the wall, "Don't you come NEAR ME…So help me God!"

--

tbc.

Please R&R.

Thanks.

sifi


	5. Chapter 5

Fragment – chpt 5.  
by: sifi 

--

"What the hell's wrong with you?" Sam frowned crossing the motel room toward Dean who seemed to want to make himself disappear.

"Stay back Sam! I swear! Just stay back!" he barked ducking his head and tucking his murderous hands into his armpits. He couldn't bear to look at his fingernails, he was terrified of the possibilities he might find there.

"Dean please… you're scaring me… a lot…" he added backing off by a couple steps but lowering himself to his knees on the floor, cocking his head, trying to get a look at his brother's face. It didn't make any sense that Dean would be frightened of him, not for any reason, _Uh except that you're a psychic freak with a demon hunting your ass…well there is that…_he admitted to himself just as his brother gasped hugely.

His throat closed on the air as he drew it in and he felt his tongue fall back when he gagged, a horrible visual coming to him. "Oh God… oh god, ohgodohgodohgodohgod, no… please no… please tell me I didn't… tell me I couldn't have… no way… never, no matter what… I couldn't… not like that…" he was clutching his head, rocking in the corner, oblivious to his little brother.

"Dean? What is it?" Sam barely breathed. He'd broken a sweat and felt his clothes starting to cling to him. He clutched his thighs to keep his hands from shaking and it took every ounce of concentration he had to keep the fear out of his voice. _What's going on here? Is he okay? was it just another nightmare? Could it be a Night Terror and he might still really be asleep even though his eyes are open? This is scary man… I don't like this at all… if I can't get him to snap out of it…Oh man… where can we go? He's in the Federal freakin' Database! Damnit!_

Sam could've been knocked over with a feather when his brother lifted his head out of his hands, his face red, layered with sweat and copious tears, not just the one or two that sometimes sneaked out, but streams, small, but streams nonetheless.

"Tell me Sam…" he choked, his eyes bugging and begging, something in him looking very much like a sad and deeply frightened Boston Terrier.

"What Dean?..." he asked reaching out with a hand to see, but no, his brother recoiled from him but at least he didn't look away.

"What?" he asked helplessly dropping his hand back to his thigh.

"Where's Laura?" Dean asked, once more his eyes flicked across the room and he seemed to be looking for something that he was relieved but still disbelieving, that he wasn't seeing.

Sam shook his head taken aback by the question, "We don't know… she's been missing for weeks… Dean… whatever it was, it was just another nightmare man… come on… listen to me… we were just talking about going and starting to investigate again, see if we can find her… you… just… flip! popped back in the chair like somebody sucker punched you or something… you cracked your head real good on the floor … and you've been down for about twenty minutes…"

In his corner Dean blinked hard, his hand pointing shakily to his little brother before tucking safely back into his armpit, "Aaahhh, aahh hit you Sam…"

Sam shook his head and nodded in a yes/no gesture, "…yeah well you freaked out a little bit too…look Dean it's no big deal…just come out of there willya?" he asked nervously, something tapping incessantly on his instincts, there was a change in the air and Sam couldn't read it, but it was happening.

Dean shook his head quickly and tucked his face back into his crossed arms, "Go 'way Sam… get out of here… go away… leave me alone…" he muttered.

"I'm not leaving you… sure as hell not like this…now listen to me Dean… You just need to come out of there, I'm not going to hurt you… I promise…" he insisted reaching toward him, pleading.

In his corner, Dean erupted into a laughter that made Sam shudder. He looked pleadingly into Sam's earnest expression. His own expression crinkled and he pressed his hands to his face, peeking out from behind his fingers each time the laughter died down.

His head came up and his eyes fixed on Sam's as he sniffed then ran his arm under his nose like a kid, "Salt! Gimme salt…"

Sam frowned but nodded, _it's not like he's asking for a shotgun in this condition… it's only salt… _he thought digging in Dean's bag for the canister in there. He moved back around the bed toward Dean who shook his head scrambling along the wall, keeping distance between them.

"No! Sam! Don't you come near me! Toss it to me…" he instructed glancing quickly at the floor around him, _This is where I left him for dead…_ his hand stroked the drywall and felt nothing, he patted down the carpet, it was dry, _I know I did… I felt it…_ finally he dared a look at his hands, cringing as he turned them over and inspected his fingernails then chucking a sob when he saw that they were clean. _Maybe it was a dream.. a nightmare… and Laura? Does that mean I didn't kill her too?... oh God the redhead…_ he wondered cringing and looked down at his zipper, nothing seemed amiss. _Did I shoot someone... did I kill someone while I was coming?_ he swallowed hard, his face a mask of distaste and uncertainty. If he tried he could taste that redhead and her Irish coffee on the back of his tongue.

"Dean!" Sam called sharply waving the canister from halfway across the room. When he knew he had his brother's attention he tossed it to him and watched him skitter to the bathroom where he promptly salted the threshold then turned and did the window sash.

_What the hell…?_ Sam wondered watching Dean stretch out his kinks and start to unfold himself so he could sit on the toilet.

"What're you doin' Dean?... I'm not possessed… I swear… on Dad's… ashes…" Sam promised, his arms out to the side and his palms up, placating while his expression betrayed his fear. Whatever he was dreaming sure made him scared of me…

"It's not that Sammy…" Dean finally said, his voice almost normal again, almost calm.

"Then what? If I didn't think it would send you through the window I'd step over that line to prove it to you… I'm NOT possessed… I WILL NOT hurt you!"

"I know…" Dean breathed just a bit easier and nodded slowly while looking sidelong at Sam.

"Then what?" Sam asked now thoroughly confused.

He met his big brother's eyes and in just a moment of swimming into the fear within them Sam began to understand, "You're afraid _you're _going to hurt_ me_…"

--

John remembered falling to his knees, the splat!crack his caps made on the tile, one hand covering his mouth, hoping to make sure he didn't throw up, even as the other reached toward his boy, he wanted to touch him, hold him in his arms, tell him it was going to be alright but there were no hand-width worth of skin that hadn't been cut or gouged or, God help him! even gone so far as to peel the occasional square of flesh completely off his body.

"Please… Dean… my god son… what have you done?" John asked breathlessly, his thumb and forefinger coming to rest on the medial and lateral bones of his ankle, less than an inch of flesh on either side, in tact.

"I can't feel Dad… there's something wrong… it wasn't my fault… it was that yellow eyed bastard… it was… what he did… we couldn't… Sammy… he'd never want to live like that… dad… oh god dad why can't I feel?... help me please…" Dean pleaded, his arm, what was left of it reached toward John, and he suddenly felt like the tormented hero in a Clive Barker sick-fest.

"Dean… Son… what have you done?" was all John could ask as he watched innumerable streams trickle, each a tributary to the ocean of red on the floor. In slow motion, John remembered dialing 911 on his cell phone by feel. He could see nothing but his eldest son bleeding to death before his eyes.

--

"Oh God…I can't… I can't…not again… please…" Dean whispered clutching his head and sliding off the toilet. When he hit the floor he slid to the far side of the little room, pressing his back against the wall, his eyes fixed on his little brother sitting on the side of his bed, watching him, scared silly for him.

"What Dean? '_again_' what?" he asked lurching to the floor on his knees, his hands on either side of the doorway as Dean pulled his bowie knife and held it before him, the point toward Sam.

"Stay back Sam!" he ordered, a glint of light off the keen edge catching his eye. He tilted his head to the side mesmerized by the flickering hint of brilliance shining out of the metal.

--

"Give me the knife son…please…Dean…" John stretched his hand toward his boy, their eyes joined by an invisible bond. In the back of his head John was surprised he wasn't throwing up yet.

"Yeah 'kay dad," Dean nodded, turning the handle toward John and handing his gore covered bowie knife to his father.

--

"Dean… give me the knife…" Sam urged far more calmly than he felt. There was something glittering in his brother's eyes as he looked at the blade in his hands that was making his chest hurt. _Please don't let me be losing him… please…we'll find a way to fix it, to fix him… please just don't take him from me…_

Sam reached forward from the threshold, his hand crossing the line of salt and he wondered if he could make it to his brother before he did something crazy.

"Dean!... put the knife on the floor and slide it to me NOW!" he ordered, finally drawing Dean's eyes to his.

"You're on my side Sam…stay on your own side…" Dean muttered returning his gaze to the steel in his hand.

"Shit… damnit you're scaring the piss out of me here Dean…" Sam muttered running his fingers through his hair, wondering what he could do, wondering if his big brother had completely lost his mind or if there was more to it than that. Was he stuck in some kind of waking nightmare? _He'd seemed okay, sorta, for a few minutes there…_

Dean looked up from where he'd been lost in the light and saw Sammy running his fingers through his hair. _Heh… emo mop… heh…_ he thought, _he looks scared… what's wrong Sammy? Talk to me will ya? What's goin' on in that freaky noggin' of yours? Wow is that light pretty…_

When he looked up again, about to share the pretty white light with Sam he frowned. Sammy was charging at him and that was bad. He looked down, saw the point angled toward his little brother and rose quickly to his feet, _he's gonna get hurt coming at me like that! I gotta move!_ he thought and felt something inside himself shatter.

_Sammy you better back off dude you're gonna get hurt…_then he looked down and back up, his eyes meeting Sam's, a moment of clarity between them as his mouth dropped into an 'O'. _… that's bad…_

--

tbc.

Please R&R.

Thanks sifi.


	6. Chapter 6

Fragment – chpt 6.  
by: sifi 

--

"Oh God! Sam? Sammy?!... No… please… not my boy…" Dean sniffed crouching, lowering his larger than he, little brother as gently as possible to the floor.

"Call 911 and go…" Sam choked, his fingers wrapped around the hilt of his brother's knife sticking out of his belly, "Damn dumb stupid thing to do Sam!" he rolled his eyes at himself, "… damnit!" he cursed trying to smile, to assure his brother, trying to do anything to change the mask of horror that hovered skewed against the way things should be, above him. _Please Dean… for once just listen to me okay? Please… do what I say's right…_

"Oh gah…Sammy… no…" he shook his head, "I'm not goin' anywhere…" he dashed over his brother, diving across the bed to the nightstand where their phones sat next to one another. _Him and me… together, that's how it's supposed to be… Sam 'n me… side by side, just like the phones…_he thought crazily.

"Dean! just make the call and go… you're in the Federal database… you gotta go…" Sam pressed trying to control his breathing around the steel edge invading his body.

He rolled off the bed and slid to the floor at his brother's side with the cell in one hand while his other cradled Sam's face, "Oh God Sammy I'm sorry… I never meant to… it was an accident I swear it! I just wanted to show you the light inside…"

With those words Sam choked on a sob and turned his head as rivers flowed out of his eyes, _I thought I had him back… God he's crazy! The light inside… damnit Dean! You stupid son of a bitch! Why didn't you talk to me!_ "Go… Please Dean… just put the phone down and go…"

"But I didn't mean it Sammy! I swear!" Dean cried setting the phone on the floor nearby so he could hold his brother's head with both hands. He turned him gently so he could see into his eyes, "Sam… I swear it… I never meant to hurt you…" he hitched, his insides rolling around in shattered bits as he wrapped his arms around the baby brother that had always been his, truly his and no one else's. _He's MINE…and I wrecked it!_

Sam raised his hand squeezing Dean's neck reassuringly, "I know Dean… I know you never would… but you have to go… I'm going to be okay… listen to me now… I'm going to be okay, but you have to go... you have to hide… I'll know how to find you… but…" Sam swallowed and gagged around a hot copper bubble in his throat, "you have to go… please… for me…" he begged, looking into Dean's eyes. Trying to save his strength and still make his case.

_I gotta make this right… I gotta do what he says… I'm not thinking right… right? Right_. Slowly Dean rose to his feet and looked around the room, he looked down at the phone on the floor where he heard a voice coming through the little speaker. He watched Sam turn his head, struggle to grasp at the phone with one hand while waving him away with the other.

He bent and placed the phone into his little brother's hand, his eyes fell on the pommel of his knife as it moved in time with Sam's carefully controlled breathing.

"Go… please…" Sam gasped then sobbed and groaned deeply with the pain of it.

Dean winced and watched water smear his vision of the colors on the floor, "I'll be the first person you see when you wake up Sam… I swear it… whatever it takes…"

--

"…to keep you safe little brother… whatever it takes…" he nodded to himself remembering Kaitlyn and her gentle reminder about the value of subtleties. _Yeah but subtle isn't really my style now is it… he thought and squeezed Sam's hand. You'd be scarred up to hell anyway Sam… no more of those pretty puppy eyes… well the eyes would be okay I guess… I think… I don't really remember,_ he looked up at the clock on the wall and frowned with half his mouth,…_and subtle really isn't any fun now is it? Besides…I got another date with that feisty little redhead… man… I tell you she's like a freakin' energizer battery! Save a horse? She's saving a whole herd by riding this here cowboy… it's a shame Sammy… I bet you woulda liked her too… I bet she woulda done us both… or let us do her together… I mean I don't mind sharing the wealth y'know? Maybe I woulda just watched, snapped a few pix for posterity… Hmm I wonder if she's got a boyfriend or husband or ooooh! Maybe she's swings both ways and she's got a girlfriend! Yeah… I might have to follow her home… Suh Weeet! It's gonna be aaaallll good times tonight!_ he smiled to himself and wondered for a moment what his brother's face looked like under all those bandages.

_Whatever_, he shrugged exiting the room and striding down the corridor toward the bank of elevators. _One more thing to take care of._

Less than 9 minutes later the hospital was in a complete frenzy. The power was down and the generators had failed. It was a complete blackout, a near impossibility to achieve in this day and age but very few things were beyond the talents of Dean Winchester. He jogged down the corridor toward his brother's room and stopped a nurse along the way.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"Power's out… and the generators haven't kicked on…" she answered hastily but took a second to smile at him, "Don't worry your brother's going to be alright, life support systems have internal batteries…" she assured him with a pat on his arm.

"Can I stay with him?" he asked.

"Of course…" she cocked her head sympathetically, _Boy it figures he's taken! Damnit! All the good ones are! _she thought watching him disappear into his brother's room.

Dean moved around the room shutting off the machines one by one, the attempts to control panic and chaos outside the room masking the absence of noise. He stood beside his brother as his body slowly began to work harder to keep itself alive.

"I'm here for you Sammy… if I've told you once I've told you a thousand times… long as I'm around… nothing bad's gonna happen to you…" he smiled softly draping his hand over the bandaged brow, his thumb and forefinger on either side of his little brother's nose, pinching it closed while his right hand covered his mouth.

Eventually Sam's body struggled and Dean's smile widened. _Oh man this is so awesome it should be illegal! Nothing should be this much fun!_ he thought noting how feeble Sam's struggles to breathe were, and yet they were stronger than he would have thought possible, _Little bastard really wants to live! Imagine that… You wouldn't Sam… not if you knew what I know…_ he let go and watched his little brother gasp for air, watching for those eyes to open, to show some sign that it wasn't a reflex that kept him wanting to breathe. When Sam's breathing leveled out and he seemed to be holding his own, Dean grinned and clapped his hands on his face again, one eye always at the door while he memorized how it felt to control his baby brother's fate.

He played the Let-Him-Breathe; Suffocate-Him game for many long minutes, more than he should have, the noise was dying down in the corridor and when he looked at the clock his heart skipped a beat, _Might be kinda like getting caught serving it up nice and hot and hard in a stairwell kind of exciting…meh… better not take the chance this time… maybe in another life little brother… right now… I got a job, and that's to keep you safe!_ from the back of his jeans he drew his knife and laid the edge on the far side of his siblings' neck, _I love you Sammy… I told you I'd protect you forever…_ with more force than necessary, just to make sure the job was done clean and quickly he forced the keen edge down and drew it toward him in one swift motion. Blood jetted out but he was prepared, moving swiftly behind Sam's nearly decapitated head until the spray became a trickle. He moved quickly and cautiously, the gloves he'd worn were inside out in his pocket and not a visible fleck could be seen on his dark field jacket. He waved and smiled at staff who recognized him then checked his watch as he stepped out into the bright afternoon light.

_Good… I should be there right on time…_ he nodded while sliding behind the wheel of the impala and pulling out into traffic, _I'm coming my little porcelain figurine… well not just yet but soon…_ he thought resting his hand in the crotch of his pants, his fingers moving slowly at first.

--

"I said NO!" she turned and ran but Dean's stride was longer, and he'd fully expected this little game of cat and mouse.

"Your mouth may be saying no… but your…" he kicked her feet out from under her and pinned her beneath him, his hand cupped that jean-clad triangle of hers, pressing until she squealed under the bruising force he was using, "… is just screaming YES!" he growled wrapping his hand into her hair at the base of her skull, controlling her with his grip, panting hard, eyes shining star-bright with excitement. He crushed his mouth onto hers and felt her teeth dig into his lip while the heel of her hand collided furiously with his temple, making him SEE stars. Still he laughed.

"Oh yeah… fight me bitch!" he snarled grasping her lip in his teeth and biting until he couldn't take the sound of her scream anymore. "Stick a plate in that!" he smiled breathing hard, tendrils of bloodied saliva sprayed over her face as he did so and with the hand still entwined in her hair he jerked her head back, arching her back, keeping her immobile and completely under his control.

"Y'know…" he started as he rose to his feet, jerking the redhead along behind him on the carpeting, never allowing her to gain footing as he traversed the hallway to her bedroom, "There's something I've been wondering for a long long time… Y'see… I have a brother… well I _had_ a brother… he's dead now…" he opened her closet door and pulled the light on, rummaging willy-nilly through her belongings while consistently managing to keep her from her feet. He looked down at her and shook his head, "You're not a particularly bright bulb are you sweetie?..." _I've given you a dozen or more opportunities to get out of my grip but you just haven't seen 'em have you?_ he smirked wondering if the next part of the game would make him happier. At last his eye fell on what he was looking for. A belt, one of many hung on a hangar in the back of the closet. "Hmm women… home ec has its place I suppose…" he took the belt off the hangar and finally felt her foot connect with the back of his knee, but Dean was nothing if not well trained.

He shifted his weight and turned around waving the belt before her quickly widening eyes. _Well that's a really strange look…_he thought as he watched her lip flap up and down while acknowledging that he was seeing her teeth through a hole where skin should have been. "Now… see I'm not really interested in beating you or anything sweetheart… I just want to know something… well maybe a couple of somethings really… so… while it's kinda doubtful right now… there IS a possibility you could get out of this alive…"

--

Dean lurched into the breezeway, his vision seeming to be moving in and out, as if it were breathing in time with him, for the millionth time he wondered what the hell was happening to him, he wondered if he'd somehow been drugged, slipped some acid or 'shrooms or something, but if that were the case Sam would've been affected to. _Oh God Sammy! I'm so sorry…_ he called above the screaming in his head.

Even as he stumbled down the breezeway a deep dull ache in his lower belly started to grow, he could tell it was only the beginning of the pain, there was a persistent quality about it, but he had a greater concern at the moment. Even though he was upright, on his feet, somehow there was a redhead under him, gagged, crying, terrified and it was because of him and to make matters even worse, in his own hand he held the end of a belt that was looped around the woman's neck.

Every time the woman beneath him tried to scream from behind the gag, he could feel his arm jerk to the side cutting her breath off. He watched with fascination when her eyes bulged and her skin began to change colors. When he saw her cheeks turning a splotchy white and purple he could feel himself swollen to agonizing pressure and he wanted to give himself release despite the image before his eyes, despite the sickness that was spreading through him unchecked. But when he looked down, there was no physical sign of his own actual arousal. _Well thank God for that much! God Sammy where are you? Are you okay? if I could get this sickness out of my head… a shapeshifter!?_ an insight struck him square between the eyes even as his stomach lurched, _A psychic shapeshifter! still… hooked into my head? Maybe?_ he wondered closing his eyes, turning his head, trying to look anywhere but at the torn and bleeding face beneath him, the tears that rained out of her eyes that he knew he'd made, but the tormented visage could not be shaken, _I'm sorry lady… I don't have a freakin' clue who you are but I'm sorry… I swear… it can't be a shapeshifter… I saw Sammy coming at me just a second before it happened… a vision? No man I'm not the family freak… that's shining boy… please be alive Sam… I can't do this without you! I won't do this without you… I'll quit! I'll… do something stupid… I'll march right into hell and see how many of them I can take out before they get me! No, that's too much trouble… I'll just quit… You have to be okay Sam! Please!_

Motion caught his attention, snapping his head to the right and forcing a very Ally Sheedy squeal and grunt from him as his eyes bulged and his back hit the brick wall behind him. He slid down, into the shadow, his hand over his mouth just looking. The redhead that he couldn't get out from under him, the one that was dying by degrees, by his own hand, while his got his rocks off on it, walked past him, her eyes focused a little harder than normal directly ahead, _No eye contact… she doesn't recognize me… that's good… that means I didn't kill her yet… I won't… I won't okay? I just… won't!_ he nodded pushing himself to his feet, his steps unsteady as the light faded from the womans' eyes, her blood smeared and streaked face, framed with matted copper hair, and an instant before the last vestige of light fled her being Dean stopped in his tracks and doubled over clutching his belly, his heart felt like it was trying to rip out of his chest. _Gotta get… hide…_ he thought, _Sammy said hide…_ his inner voice whispered while he crawled toward the basement stairwell of the building he was leaning on.

He nearly slithered down the cement steps, dragging himself into the furthest, darkest corner there was where he drew his knees to his chest, the pain in his belly growing to stabbing proportions so deep the agony was picking and torquing its way into his groin. He couldn't have straightened up if he'd wanted to, and to make matters worse, he was pretty certain that while he was killing that girl, that cute little redhead that walked stoically past him he'd never felt such ecstasy, he'd never felt such power and bliss before in his life, and he was pretty sure that despite the deep abhorrence at the depravity he'd just committed, as well as his lack of arousal, he'd either just blown a load or peed himself. He couldn't decide which would be worse. _As long as I don't have to feel anything at all right now… I don't give a damn…_ In the dark, Dean closed his eyes.

--

tbc.

please R&R

Thank You.

sifi.


	7. Chapter 7

Fragment – chpt 7.

By: sifi

--

"NO! No, no no no no no No NO NO NOOO NOOOUH!... I won't, I can't… I didn't and I never will! Stop it! I didn't do it!..." he pressed himself into the corner against the cold tile of the shower stall.

Arms reached for him but he was free now and twisted away from them, his eyes bulging wide inside his head, "I swear I didn't do it… no! I didn't kill her! I wasn't my fault! She made me! She made me! It's HER fault! I just wanted…." they were looking at him, their mouths were moving and they were frowning, they didn't like what he was saying but he had to make them understand!

"They choke him! They ALWAYS choke him! I had to know… but I didn't…I would NEVER do that!...She felt so good… so tight… and hot…" his eyes fluttered to half mast as he wrapped his hand around himself, teasing, and taunting and making those good feelings tingle in the pit of his belly, "Oh God she was sweet! and I TOOK IT! Everything I wanted… but she MADE me!" he tried to explain.

"Okay now Dean… just settle down alright? Who did you kill?" a face that made the pain go away sometimes asked.

"Oooh ho ho… I didn't just kill her!... or _Him_ either!... oh no no no no!" he laughed wagging his finger, using the fact that he was wet and slicked with soap to his advantage, they couldn't get a grip on him as he spun and dodged past them into a different area, one that wasn't so crowded with people who wanted to tie him up some more, "I didn't JUST kill her! I slaughtered her! But she made me! She wasn't helping me figure it out!" he held one hand up in a 'stop' gesture. He nodded grinning and pulling at himself with the other, his tongue snaked out and wet his lips, "Oh yeah… I BANGed her! I SLAMMED her until she broke… I did her real good…and she cried and screamed the whole time… she was beautiful!"

Motion at the wired window in the doorway caught his attention and he looked at that graying bearded face he loved so well, "Dad?" he tilted his head to the side.

He shook his head, "I gotta go… I gotta get… Sammy said hide… I gotta hide…" he muttered, his right hand still out in that warding off gesture while the fingers on his left hand moved up to his belly and started to pick at the edge of one of the scars that criss-crossed his body as if he'd been sliced with a wire mesh screen.

"Dean stop it!" the one who stopped the pain called urgently, his eyes fixed on Dean's lower belly where his fingers were picking, digging and blood had begun to flow.

"Nah nah! You can't make me… I did it but I didn't either…" he laughed, "It was the other one! it was her fault.. she made me take this…" he grabbed himself viciously, his hand squeezing and torquing while he tried to make them understand, "…and she made me hurt her! and kill her.. but it was sooo good!" he pleaded and yanked fast and hard, the bit of himself sliding out of his hand while the men present reflexively bent over themselves and pressed their legs tightly together, "I didn't do it… she made me… see? and it hurts… can I stop now?" he asked plaintively.

"YES!" came a chorus of shouts that bounced around the tile room.

Dean leaned against the wall and felt the side of his mouth turn up at the corner. There was a thrumming at the door and he looked again, seeing his father's face pressed against the glass. With the fingers of his left hand wending their way beneath a diamond shaped patch of scar tissue, he raised his right hand and smiled broadly at the window, and waved, "Hi daddy!...this is where the rats are!"

He saw his father mouth 'hi' and wave back and felt tears falling down his face over the wet and soap while he continued to pick and dodge the staff that were trying to figure out how best to take him without hurting him. A smart one turned the lock on the door and let John into the room.

"Dean…" he choked looking at the patchwork that was left of his son, watching him mutilate himself, naked and vulnerable on so many levels. He saw the rapidly purpling root of his lower abdomen and winced and he couldn't help but notice the steady trickle of blood running down his son's leg, the river from his ripped patch of scar tissue joining with the stream that came from whatever damage he'd done to his manhood.

Swallowing down his fear and pain for his boy, he moved to a shelf and grabbed a towel. He opened it and held it up while trying to wrangle a smile out of himself. "Bath time's over Dean… come on tiger… it's time to get your p.j.'s on and get ready for bed now…"

"Okay daddy…" Dean nodded and pushed off the wall, the bright red coating the fingers of his left hand caught his attention, "…I got a uh oh…" he nodded holding up his bloodied fingers so his dad could see while moving into John's embrace.

"Yeah you do son… yeah you do…" John sniffed wrapping his boy safely into the towel and into his arms.

The doctor waved the rest of the staff back but approached the two men cautiously.

"Dean?" he said softly.

Beautiful oblivious green eyes looked at him, and that innocent smile that had once charmed many women caught him off guard, "Uh huh…"

"I'm gonna give you some medicine that's gonna let us fix that uh oh okay?" he asked.

"A shot?" Dean asked.

The doctor nodded.

Dean looked at his father's face, John nodded and smiled, his hand stroking his son's long hair smooth while he pressed his head to the crook of his neck and held him tight, "No problem dude."

Dean looked back at the doctor, "No problem dude," he echoed smiling but squeezed his eyes closed and kept his arms around John while chemistry did its thing. He began to dream of a terrible night that happened months ago, the night his baby's eyes turned oily yellow and something awful happened to him.

--

"…_you have…destiny… you're gold…" _Dean's eyes slid softly open and took in the darkness around him before lowering closed once more. _Heart hurts... can't breathe…_he thought vaguely though with an image of his little brother turning toward him, smiling in that open way he had, he began to calm. Something started to hum inside him and as Sam's expression changed to one of questioning, he looked down, the sawed off in his hands, the barrel scant inches from his baby's chest.

An explosion he was familiar with, sounded in his head and he watched something terribly wrong when Sam flew backwards, speckles and flecks of blood and flesh raining out of him and onto Dean.

"Sammy!" he could've sworn he called out. His eyes flew wide open then settled once more as if sleep were dragging him into a very private hell, but he wasn't asleep and part of him knew it.

--

"…I want you to watch out for Sammy…" John said softly, just inside the doorway to Dean's hospital room.

"Yeah dad… you know I will…" he nodded, feeling a gnawing clawing sensation in the pit of his belly, something was wrong, _he's going to take off after the demon again… he knows I'm okay so he's taking off after that yellow eyed son of a bitch again… Dad… please… just stick around a while… I got a bad feeling about this…_he thought as John came forward, leaned over him and breathed things into his ear. _What? Is this for real? Are you shittin' me? Don't tell me this…why are you telling me this?_

_He tells me not to be scared, then he tells me…this is too much right now…Do you know what this means!? How'm I NOT supposed to be scared!_

John nodded, those few disobedient tears on his face making shiny streaks in his careworn and well loved creases. He used his eldest son's moment of shock to serve his own purposes, to escape without further questions, without explanations. It was all going to be over soon anyway…

"…okay I'll call it… time of death, 10:41 a.m."

_Come on, come on Dad! come on… no! It's wrong! Don't you say that! Take it back!... This is wrong… this is ALL wrong! It's not supposed to be like this! God dad… what did you do?_

--

"…but daddy! all he does is poop it out! and it's stinky!" Dean wrinkled his nose but held the tiny rubber covered spoon at the edge of his brother's mouth.

"You think your poo didn't stink mister? Used to make my eyes water sometimes I swear!" John laughed ruffling his big boy's hair, "…Look Dean before you know it Sammy's gonna be chasing you around with more energy than a puppy… and then the next thing you know you're going to be teaching him how to tie a shoe, and a hitch knot, and how to hold the knife to make it stick into the board… it's going to go so quickly son… and you'll see… you're the big brother… I may be the dad but Sammy's already yours…"

"What do you mean?" Dean asked frowning while he scooped some of the pureed green goo from his brother's chin.

"The way he smiles when you sing to him… how quickly he falls asleep when you hold him and rock him?... the way he squeals first thing in the morning when you pick him up?" John pointed out.

"Uh huh…" Dean nodded, he knew those moments, he knew what his dad was saying.

"See… he chose YOU Dean… all those nights when you slept with him in your arms? That hard time you were so afraid and needed him with you?... he felt your love son… he's YOUR baby just as much if not more than he is mine…" John tried to explain but realized he was only succeeding in confusing his little boy.

"Don't say that daddy! Sammy loves you too!" Dean's voice went up a notch in pitch as he turned and looked into his little brother's happy smiling face, while his hands slapped hard on the table, making Rorshach blots of the mushed baby food splatters he'd dropped or dribbled. "See! He's smiling! and laughing! He loves you too!"

John smiled, "Of course he does… it's just different than how he loves you is all…"

Dean frowned and examined that chubby cherubic face in front of him at the same time Sammy decided to make a pureed split pea airplane prrrffft!, showering his big brother in baby slime.

"Eeeew! Sammeeeeeeeee! eeeew grooooooss!" Dean howled dropping the spoon and running around the table swiping the ick from his face.

John clutched his belly, tears pouring from his eyes as he howled laughter.

In just a few minutes all three Winchester men were squealing, laughing and gasping for air.

"So there were good times too…" John nodded, "… we chuckled for weeks with that one… sometimes I can still get Dean to crack a smile when I mention it."

"And that's how Dean started to feel such an intense closeness to Sam?"

"No… that's when I tried to explain to him that they were going to have a special bond… I could see it forming already. Sam's eyes would follow Dean everywhere when he was in sight, but Dean… no… from that first night Dean couldn't stand it if Sam was out of his sight for more than a few seconds at a time. He'd drag that little bouncy chair all over, even to the bathroom when he had to go… he couldn't stand to let that little guy out of his sight…but even before then…" John stalled and looked into those eyes in front of him, he found comfort in them, comfort he hadn't had in such a long time.

"How do you mean?... before then?"

John smiled and sniffed, pained by the memories, "When Mary started showing with Sam, when we explained to Dean that he was going to have a baby brother or sister… he didn't react like a normal child… he didn't get that 'I'm confused…' and 'what does that mean for me' thing… I mean he literally just started jumping around… clapping his hands and squealing… he was ecstatic… everywhere Mary took him, whenever the subject of her being pregnant came up, he would tell people, anyone who'd listen, 'Mommy's giving me a baby!' not, 'a baby _brother or sister_…' just, '…a baby…' so knowing what I know now, it just seems right that Sammy was kinda born to be his… I mean we almost never saw eye to eye…maybe we were too much alike," John sighed and scrubbed his face with his hands, "I miss my children… both of them… I want it back the way it was… I want both my boys whole and happy and healthy… I want to know I can pick up a phone, or see them any time… I want MY Dean back… and HIS Sammy back…" he hiccoughed unable to shake the shakes that had come into him with this morning's adventure in insanity. "I want my world back the way it's supposed to be…"

--

tbc.

Please R&R… thanks.

sifi


	8. Chapter 8

Fragment – chpt 8.

by: sifi.

--

_Oh man… can't breathe… can't breathe… what the hell's going on? Did I just shoot Sammy?_ his eyes opened in the darkness and he knew he was indoors. _No… we were outside when I shot him… bone-yard maybe? Hard to say… Why'd I shoot him?..._ an image of shifting yellow eyes in Sam's face came to him, _breathe Dean! I can't feel my lips…_ slowly his chest began to expand, filling his head with sparkling cotton as oxygen nourished him once more.

An image of a battered, bloody red-head came to him as pain stabbed through his lower abdomen stopping his breath in his throat for its intensity. A shadow moved, black on black, more of a sense of motion rather than anything visual and though he wanted to call out, wanted to feel the strong pull of Sammy's hand in his he couldn't. That shadow might not be Sam, it might be something else. Holding in a whimper as a ripping-rending tried to burrow its way out of him, he gasped and pulled his knees to his chest with one hand, the other reaching out into darkness, _Not the rats…please not the rats… someone, anyone? Please… help me…_

--

Shivering woke him with a snap of his jaw and he tasted tangy from the inside of his cheek. _Sam?... something happened… there was light… it was so pretty… oh man my guts!... oh man the rats! Stabbing… stabbing something… OH MY GOD! _"Sam!" he barked waking fully with the image of his brother laying on the bathroom floor, his bright red blood seeping up from the edges of HIS knife sticking in his gut. Some of that blood ran from the corner of his mouth as his eyes cried tears and he begged Dean to leave him.

His heart squeezed into his throat while his hands scrubbed his face. _It's so dark… how could I leave him? Sam!… I'm coming Sammy…_ he levered himself, however stiffly, to his feet, a variation in shadow guiding him out of the stairwell and into the open air of evening.

Under a streetlamp he saw a memory of blood matted copper hair and leaned heavily, gasping for breath as though he were the one who had an eight inch bowie knife sticking into his guts. He looked at his hands noting just a hint of dirty rust on a couple of his fingers, _At least it's not the red-head's guts… or Laura's…_ he gasped feeling that gnawing again, it was odd and grotesquely dull with moments of sharpness. _It feels like the rats…oh God Sammy said he'd keep them away… he said they didn't get in… oh man, snap OUT of this Dean! That was sixteen years ago! they bit… yes, they bit but they didn't get inside_ but a part of him was insisting they were there, they'd been there all along and were just now trying to bite and claw their way out of him, _…and God help me I think they really are! Gotta get to Sammy… his blood… the redhead's… no she walked past me as I killed her… Laura? Did I kill her too? Sammy never told me… I remember showering bits of her off my body…she was stuck to me, on the side…_ he ran his hand down his right side with the memory, _we made love… we broke up… but we were back together… at least for the night… _a flick of steel against skin made his stomach lurch and it was all he could do to keep himself on his feet. _No... not Sammy… my GOD not Sammy!_ he found the strength to push himself away from the streetlight, to move forward even though he felt like his intestines had taken on a life of their own and were trying to break free of him. He had to get to Sam.

--

"... his prints were all over the knife…"

"That's because it's his knife… he was sharpening it…" Sam explained drowsily.

"And you just happened to run onto it? You were feeling a little… what? Self destructive? Suicidal?" the no-nonsense agent mocked.

"Superman…" Sam smiled, "I thought I was Superman for a sec… oops…" he chuckled, "Guess I was wrong…"

"Mr. Winchester do you realize I could have you arrested for aiding and abetting an escaped felon?" he asked.

Sam nodded, "Accused… not proven… but go for it… y'know why? 'Cause he didn't do it…he didn't kill anyone…" he blinked hard and shook his head feeling as if there was a rock sitting on his belly then yawned hard and missed the look that passed between his two visitors.

"…Cops know that…" he muttered and whipped his eyes back open, "Y'know… you could do your friggin' jobs and clear him once and for all if you just freakin' exhumed the body of the damned doppleganger in St. Louis… looks just like him… easy mistake to make… but why the hell would you want to clear an innocent man? Huh? Freakin' Federal Bureau of Insanity… ass holes… get out of my room…" he grumbled feeling a wave of muted, cottony fury trying to come to a point within himself, thankfully the drugs in his system weren't letting that happen.

One of them, he wasn't sure which one really, leaned over him, eyes boring into his with such a wooden seriousness it made Sam want to laugh, "Mr. Winchester… your brother stabbed you with an eight inch Bowie Knife… then he fled and left you to die! Why are you trying to protect him?"

Sam wobbled his head, "Eff You…" he slurred, "My mistake… I made a dumb mistake… Sammy Dumbass Winchester… that's m'name don't wear it out… he he he, and I told him to leave cause I knew you shitheads would show up… that's why I'm the smart one!" he nodded starting to feel pretty good despite the weight in his belly.

"How are you going to hook up later?" he asked.

Sam rolled his head back and forth again and felt a small wistful smile playing on his lips as he thought of Sarah, the memory of kissing her so hungrily, of their weekend together and how they'd learned each other so thoroughly.

"Hook up with Dean?... not happenin'… he's gone… told him go… he listens to me… I'm his psychic friend don't cha know…" he grinned, yawned, and sighed as his head rolled to the side and drug induced sleep ended the questioning session.

--

"Sammy!... SAMmy!... SAMMY!" Dean called as he thrashed on the quilted floor under him, "NO! Not my boy! He's MINE! YOU CAN'T HAVE HIM!... Oh God… Gah… SamMY!" he howled. His eyes were open but there wasn't a hint of his mind in the present. "Somebody HELP me! Why won't anybody HELP ME! Sammy!"

John swallowed, his forehead pressing against the glass window to his son's room while his boy rolled kicking, bucking and screaming, bound tightly in that horrible canvas contraption that kept him from tearing himself apart with his bare hands. _I'm losing him, moment by moment… every second of every day pulls him further from me…I can't watch this… this… my son's hell… my son's hell is my hell… please God… help my boy… I don't care about myself, just help my boy… _

--

"Sammy!" he barked and gasped, breathing hard for a long moment as light and color came back to his vision, and feeling returned to his face.

"What?" he looked up from the computer screen and caught sight of the near panic on his brother's face, "Dean?"

The elder Winchester shook his head and met his brother's eyes, he was at a complete loss. "Nothing…" he groaned as a feeling of pain shot through his lower belly, intense enough to double him over in his chair, _Not the rats…_ he thought fleetingly and shook his head as the feeling retreated to a dull ache speckled with moments of sharpness.

"You alright?" he asked, his brows furrowing as his big brother clutched his abdomen for a minute then seemed to breathe through it.

"Yeah…" he gasped and nodded.

"Dean what the hell is going on? You're starting to scare me man… how's your head?" he asked, "You seein' double or anything?"

He'd been half joking but the wary huff that came out of his big brother gave him pause, "Dude don't tell me you need another CT, I swear to God you're gonna start mutating in front of my eyes…seriously… what's going on? Are you okay?"

Dean shook his head, his eyes wide and his expression once again telling more of the story than his words would, "I don't know… I keep seeing… hearing… things… awful things man…" his brows furrowed and his mouth frowned deeply, "… I could've swore I shot you… or… something…" he chugged from his water bottle as an image of his blade slicing through a heavily bandaged and unconscious Sam's neck rocked him. His hand squeezed reflexively and if the fear that came afterward hadn't been so startling, Sam actually would've laughed as half the bottle emptied into his face.

Barely seeming to notice a fountain of water up his nose Dean jack-in-the-boxed to his feet, the chair clattering to the floor behind him, his eyes fixed on his little brother as his hand pulled his lock-back from his back pocket. He opened the blade and looked at it, it wasn't the one he saw in his mind's eye, it wasn't his bowie knife, but with an image like that in his head he wasn't about to take any chances.

A moment of blankness passed through Dean's eyes and Sam felt icy fingers wrap around the base of his brain as he rose to his feet, his expression wary, "Dean?" he asked. Since they'd arrived in town Dean had been a little off. Sam first thought it was because he wasn't sleeping well, but a few weeks worth of crap sleep, under normal circumstances, would never have given Sam cause to feel wariness around his brother. Unfortunately, the last couple months, since John's death, coupled with something Dean was keeping locked down deep inside, Laura's frighteningly thorough disappearance, added to the multiple weeks worth of crappy sleep, the moments of pure strangeness Dean had been experiencing since they'd arrived in this tiny little 'burg, and now this question about whether or not he'd ever shot him? Needless to say, Sam wasn't about to take any chances, not considering what they'd come here to investigate anyway.

"What 'cha doin?" he asked.

"Relax Sam…" Dean snapped back to himself, folded the knife closed and pushed it across the table to his little brother then grabbed his jacket and slid into it meeting Sam's eyes pointedly, "I'm gonna take a walk… do us both a favor…" he tossed him the keys to the car, "…whatever weapons we've got in our bags… put 'em somewhere…" he nodded and turned.

"Dean?" Sam asked just as his hand clasped the doorknob.

"Just do it Sam… okay?"

"…your gun," Sam instructed with his hand out.

Dean smiled and dropped his head, he'd completely forgotten about the gun in his jacket. He pulled it, dropped the mag, emptied the chamber and handed it all over to his younger brother.

"I'll be back in a while…"

"Where're you going?" Sam asked.

"Well, we came here to look into some unexplained incidents of sleepwalk-psychosis right?"

"I thought you had it figured out as toxins in the water or a natural gas leak or something…" Sam joked though he was relieved that Dean wasn't willing to take any chances. _Maybe he's going to be okay after all… I hope. _

Dean Shrugged, "I might have been…"

"Wrong?" Sam smirked.

"It does happen… not very often… after all I _am_ the big brother," he smirked nodding.

"Which means you're always right…" Sam finished.

"Damned straight… even if I'm…mistaken once in a while… I'm still right about it," he smiled then shrugged with his mouth and placed the piece for his EMF meter into his ear, "I'm gonna go see if I can find anything that points to anything supernatural."

"Dean… aren't you worried that… maybe I could…" Sam started to ask.

Dean took a moment to consider Sam's question, unwilling to brush aside his younger sibling's concerns as immaterial no matter what John might have discovered about him, "No… " he smiled in a way Sam hadn't seen in years. An open, complete and absolutely unguarded smile that spoke of nothing but certainty, the manifestation of it touched Sam's heart in a way that told him that somehow nothing else mattered but his big brothers' faith in him. Something that told him because Dean believed it, it MUST be so, and for the first time in a long time, Sam started to feel good.

"Why not? I mean I AM the psychic freak here…" he asked curiously.

Dean shrugged, "I don't know Sam… but the way I figure it… I started getting these flashes… glimpses… whatever you want to call 'em… pretty much when we got to town… you… you still got nuthin'… maybe your abilities protect you from whatever's going on here, or maybe your exercises with Kaitlyn helped… I don't know but…" he speculated.

Sam shrugged, _It's not implausible… I hope you're right Dean… I won't let anything happen to you… long as I'm in MY right mind…_ "I'll ditch the weapons then hit the Sheriff's station if you want to check the history of the town."

Dean nodded, "We'll meet up at that park we passed coming in… around 3? Well have some beers, shoot some pool at the bar across the street… see what we came up with?" he suggested.

Sam nodded, "Be careful Dean… whatever's going on here… I don't like the feel of it."

"Dude you're not feeling it…" Dean reminded him.

"Exactly," Sam nodded.

--

tbc.

Please R&R…

Thanks. sifi


	9. Chapter 9

Fragment – chpt 9.

by: sifi.

**GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING**

**Mature and graphic enter at your own risk ... consider yourself warned**

--

"…Y'know I found my brother like this once… he's dead now… did I tell you that?" he smirked watching the face above him, the one he'd strung up from the garage door track, just like he'd found Sam at Carol Guinardi's house. That was, of course their first encounter with Eddy Jay, the Child Killer spirit that had resurrected the spirit of the man who kept him hostage and brutalized him for days as a child.

His mind's eye flew back to that time so long ago, "…it wouldn't have happened if Dad hadn't left me in that vortex… I never told anyone… I wished for the longest time that that FREAKIN' s.o.b. had just killed me… I really wish he had… even now…" he sniffed and swore to himself that he could taste the stale cigarettes and b.o. in the back of his nose. He could taste the tobacco that permeated Aaron Beyers' skin, every bit of it he'd been forced to…

He breathed deep, swallowing back tears he'd never let himself shed, even in the privacy of his own mind. He could feel the cool clammy hands on his thirteen year old self, the jagged scratching of unkempt fingernails on him as they curled around the waistband of his underwear and drew them down, over his hips and off his fevered, shivering little body. Even now he could smell his fear mingling with the fetid breath that rolled up his belly, he could taste the filthy gag in his mouth and the sand papery poke of Aaron Beyers' fingertips as they slid back up his legs spreading them open, his terrified mewling and feeble fevered squirming only making matters worse. He felt one hand come up under the family jewels, the fingers of that hand wrapping around his instrument in a way that made a mockery of the very concept of intimacy and made tears fall from his eyes for the perversion he knew even through his delirium was about to happen, if he tried, he could still feel those tears slide down the sides of his head while to his horror he felt what he first thought must be a leech sucking on his inner thigh.

The leech stopped but he still heard sucking and heavy wet slurping and while that one hand juggled, stroked and squeezed his privates, cold slickness came up under him, sliding and squirming like a knobby worm into the crevasse of his buttocks. He remembered pressure and scratching and a need to relieve himself, and he remembered that as much as he'd tried to yank his hands or feet free of their bindings he'd been unable.

He stood in the garage, frozen, lost in the memory of his past. He remembered wondering vaguely if it was some horrible nightmare, then his ears were filled with unintelligible mutterings as something by his ankles changed and he was flipped onto his stomach just before an added weight made the bed bounce. Rough hands grasped his hip bones and pulled his backside into the air. One of the hands left his hip and pressed down between his shoulder blades, keeping his upper chest pinned to the flimsy cot. Something cold and slimy rained down onto him and a thoughtless hand painted him with whatever it was, those fingers wedging into his split just enough to make him want to piss himself.

It was as if his assailant was a mind reader. The hand that pressed his chest onto the rough horse blanket left his back, the hands pried his legs apart and he felt something slide between them, he mewled, cried out, and bucked against the ropes that bound him as that leech mouth slid up his thigh again. To his horror it closed around the whole of him, his member, his jewels all became lost to that horrible sucking leechs' void while jagged sharp fingers travelled up and down his backside, sliding between his buttocks in time with the leech sucking. He remembered the pain, the feeling of teeth all around him, and he remembered his utter humiliation as his body let loose, voiding something more than just what was in his bladder. Something he didn't think he wanted to know about. He remembered Aaron Beyers, the mouth that sucked, that licked and pulled what would become his manhood, before vacating the spot between his legs and rising above him from behind again. This time Dean could feel his fingers sliding around his front before they grasped him, clasping hard and rude around his immature shaft and started to work the warming slime from his rear forward, until he was coated with it in the front as well. Then the fingers squeezed tighter and began moving rhythmically. Once in a while the tips would flick at his jewels, almost at the same moment he felt pressure at his backside. Then it happened. A jagged nailed finger jabbed hard and he screamed into the gag at the same time Aaron Beyers moaned and slid his finger deep into the boy under his control. Over the next few days, Dean would understand he'd been just getting started.

Dean remembered the tears that flew from him, the monstrous fear that settled, squatting within him, taking its time to grow into hate filled rage that now stormed unbound.

He let go of his end of the rope and watched the young man fall to the floor, he wasn't sure if he was dead. He stepped forward and bent, his left knee pinning him to the floor at the small of the back while he reached around and felt the front of the neck for a pulse. It was faint but it was there.

"Good… necrophilia's really not my thing…" he sneered grasping at his crotch with one hand while he flipped the young man he'd thought to observe dying by hanging onto his back, and started working the button and zipper of his jeans. Fiery light shone in his eyes and sweat beaded his brow and upper lip as he worked the jeans and boxers down, his victim's breath rasping in and out of his throat, _Oooh wonder if I cracked his larynx… hmm not like he's gonna care any time soon…_he shrugged with his mouth flipping the man back onto his stomach. He held him pinned and loosed himself from his jeans erect and pulsing with anticipation and already just a little wet. _Oh God this is gonna be good… this is gonna be better than chicks! we're talking no man's land here… there is NO tight like this is gonna be! _he chuckled spreading the warm fluid over himself, coaxing more to the surface until he had enough to slather into his objective. By the time his fingers were moving easily in and out, his eyes were half closed and rolling back with anticipation. His fingers worked hard preparing the way and once he was sure it would be like sliding into a hot gooey virgin his teeth clamped down and blood flowed from his lip into his mouth while his head pushed forward, prodding the tightness before his hips jerked and he slid into heaven.

--

"No! God No!" he jerked and spasmed on the floor, wrapped around his torso his hands were fluttering, slapping in an effort to vanquish the vision before him, to pull himself out of the dead man on the floor, _No No NO! I didn't do that!... I don't do guys!... Oh God, Oh God I killed him… I raped a guy and I killed him… I broke his friggin' neck! and God help me…_he looked down where he knew moisture was spurting from his hardness even if it was trapped within canvas, _I LIKED it! _

"GOD HELP ME!" he screamed rolling back and forth on the floor while jets of tears poured out of his eyes and he started to sob, "Won't someone help me please…" he whimpered.

At the window to the room rivers silvered John's face, flowing freely while he watched and listened to his son's helplessness. Realization dawned slowly over the horizon of his hopes, _I'll never be able to have him back… my son is gone… both my sons are gone. My God what did I do?_

--

Dean recognized the approaching vehicle for what it was, standard FBI issue, but kept walking, forcing himself to move forward without the aid of the building, to stand up straight and meander despite the tearing agony in his groin that felt like something had ruptured, this sensation now coupled with the unsettling birth of a weak hard-on. He wasn't sure exactly what was more disturbing at this point, the sense that something inside him had ruptured, the fact that he was living himself raping a _man, So Sorry… not my flavor!_ he thought; that he was trying to sprout wood because of this nightmare-vision, or that the Feds had arrived and probably had his little brother under surveillance. _At this point I don't care… something is wrong… horribly wrong, this is like some kind of frickin' nightmare I can't wake up from! It's almost as bad as that time the demon put a slice of itself into my head and made me watch Sam and Dad die… almost._

He sighed a small relief as the car passed him without slowing, the two agents inside of it appearing to be locked in a heated discussion, _they gotta have someone planted at the hospital, they gotta… Sam said hide but I can't little brother… I have to make sure you're okay…I never meant to hurt you dude…uh nuh…_he groaned and shook his head, his hand reaching out to a heavily bandaged image before him. _That's not right… why would he be bandaged up like that? He ran onto my knife…_ he remembered at the same instant he watched the edge of that bowie knife shine across his brother's throat, an arc of arterial spray fountained through the air casting droplets onto the machines that had been working to keep the youngest Winchester alive as well as the wall behind them.

"No…" he shook his head, "I can't let that happen… I gotta save my boy…" he scrubbed his face with his hands, "He's MINE… I gotta save him…" he shoved his body's pain aside, swallowed his disgust at the images shifting before his eyes and plowed forward toward the hospital. _Once I get to the park I'm halfway there…almost halfway there… I'm coming Sammy… I swear to God I won't let anyone hurt you… I'll protect you Sam, I promise. _

--

The door wafted gently closed behind him as he lurched into the single stall and fell to his knees, leaning over the toilet. His belly hitched and squeezed but nothing happened aside from the rending pain in his groin made all the more potent thanks to his dry heaving. He crossed his trembling arms over the bowl and rested his forehead against

them focusing on controlling his breathing, _Man this sucks out loud… whatever's going on here… we gotta find a way to stop it… sleepwalk psychosis… no frickin' wonder people are going nuts if they're seeing this kind of crap!_

He thought about what he'd discovered and what it could mean and knew he had to get to Sam, but he wasn't sure he could trust himself. Something horrible and his guts were telling him, huge, either was, had, or was in the process of happening here, and what he'd discovered following the EMF trail only made him more nervous. On his way back into town from the surrounding wooded area he saw the Impala outside the sheriff's station and knew Sam was probably still inside.

How he'd made it to the Hall of Records he had no clue, by sheer determination most likely since he was almost certain that somehow, something inside him was broken or torn. The pain he was feeling was horrendous and though he hadn't wanted to scare Sam, he was pretty sure it had something to do with at least one very unsettling aspect of the images that kept slamming him like waves. This particular set of images taking place in what could only be an asylum, he could feel the straight jacket around himself at times and felt himself overcome by paralysis because of it. He'd been utterly helpless to stop this… other Dean, this insane version of himself from yanking his 'self' hard enough, and with enough ferocity for Dean to feel a very frightening tearing sensation in his low abdomen. He was just as helpless against some of the other things he was feeling as well, and though he didn't want to frighten Sam, he could admit to himself that these things scared him in a way he didn't like at all. The only benefit to this particular hallucination was that he had a chance to see his father again, however briefly and however broken he might look, he was a sight for Dean's sore eyes. He'd tried to call out to him through this… crazy-Dean, tried to tell him he was doing his best to look after Sam, that he'd never let anything including that yellow eyed son of a bitch get to him, that he was keeping the secret but didn't think it was the right thing to do, but it was no use, the other images of the one he was calling evil-Dean were too powerful, too… close somehow.

It was bad enough Sam thought he'd slipped a gear after he realized he HADN'T practically beaten him to death, leaving him to die on the motel room floor, and Dean had actually grasped his larger little brother into his arms and held him tight for a long, scary moment he'd been hard pressed to explain.

_Yeah Sammy's not gonna let me forget that any time soon… whatever…I'm just glad he's alright. _He sat back a bit, the urge to throw up subsiding as were the visions of the atrocities evil-Dean was engaging in. _How the hell could I come to that? What the hell could happen that would just… _he shook his head barely daring to believe what he knew on some level, and apparently if the circumstances were just right, he was capable of. _No way, no freakin' way I could do that crap… I could NEVER hurt Sammy… I couldn't rape and kill both a woman AND a man… what about meg?_ a deeper inner voice asked, _When dad was at stake… yeah but I sure as hell didn't rape her! No… but I DID kill her…She thanked me for freeing her from the demon…even Laura…oh God!... oh yeah… okay… she's still missing… I hate to say it, but right now I'm actually grateful for that… at least I know I didn't kill her…_he shuddered slowly starting to straighten up, wondering at what point the stabbing pain would return to his lower abdomen. It was worse when he stood straight up but it still wasn't as bad as what the one he called wannabe-Dean was feeling, he was the one who accidentally stabbed Sammy, _Boy Sammy's not doin' real well in these visions…there's something I'm missing…_ he thought while pushing himself to his feet and straightening slowly, hoping to keep the pain at a minimum, _Bubbles… balloons… like billiard balls… stacked onto each other…DAMNIT! Why can't I remember?! Stupid Dean… come on dumbass… think, THINK! _he could see a picture in his head but couldn't remember _where_ or _when_ he'd seen it or what it pertained to if anything at all. _Okay… Professor Peabody… prepare to meet your match! Library Hooo Oooh! _his inner John Wayne rallied his spirit though as he left the bathroom barely noticing the complete absence of agony in his lower abdomen.

--

John closed the door behind himself and stood looking at his beloved first son, sleeping in the fetal position on the far side of the room.

"Hey dude," he greeted, crossing the quilting and kneeling near Dean's head. He shook him gently feeling helpless against the water filling his eyes. Dean stirred, his hair sweeping into his eyes. John pushed the layers of blonde and brown off his face and shook him again. Slowly Dean came awake blinking openly with his mothers' eyes.

"Dad…hey…" he yawned smiling and sat up with just a little help from his father.

He crossed his legs in front of himself and cocked his head to the side, "I'd give you a hug but I'm kinda tied up right now…" he joked then frowned noting John's red, teary eyes, "What up dad? What's the matter?" he asked.

John shook his head and smiled tightly, "You're having a good day today huh?" he asked.

Dean seemed to ponder the question a moment and nodded, "Yeah I think so… I get to see you…" he turned his head checking the room, his eyes gazing past John to the door, "Sammy didn't come with you?"

"Nuh…" John choked. He could taste his heart in his throat, each tiny shattering bit slicing through him as he flashed on the image of his youngest boys' gravesite, like Mary's it was a headstone and nothing more. Dean had been thorough, just like John taught him to be. He'd salted and burned Sam's body until the wind spread his ashes out to the world. "No sweetheart… Sammy didn't come with today, but he sends his love…" he choked and grasped his son to his chest.

"He can have mine too dad… you tell him that okay?" Dean smiled pressing his face into his father's neck, falling deep into the arms that meant safety and love, and all the good warm things he knew. He felt John nod his head, felt his breath hitch and leaned back, looking into his face, "Dad whassamatter?"

John shook his head, his hands on either side of his boy's face. He smiled running his fingers through the corn silk that was still so similar to how his hair had been as a child. It never really had gotten coarse. He sniffed back his tears and his heartache and looked into those eyes he loved so deeply, the open expressive face that had always kept him on an even keel, that kept him from becoming something other than a man. It was for his boys that he'd never given himself to darkness and he could never express his gratitude for that fact. Language was far too fragile a thing for such a feeling, it could never hope to contain what he felt for his son.

At his wrist a metallic 'snick' sounded and like lightning he swept his arm between himself and his boy.

Hot, red, metallic spray flew into his face and his tears made white stripes down his cheeks as he laid his boy down and rose to his feet "I love you son…you rest now…" and stealthily exited the facility, evaporating, as he'd done so many times before, into the darkness of wee hours.

--

tbc.

Please R&R.

Thanks, sifi.

AND… Many many thanks to Nevermore for the naming of the Dean's… weaving made easier thanks to you my friend… weaving made easier I tell you. Love and Thanks.

sifi


	10. Chapter 10

Fragment – chpt 10

by: sifi

--

"… no see that's part of the problem… I don't remember… I just know the article had pictures… like a rack for a pool table… balls, heh... uh…spheres… different colors to illustrate different, strings, strands… possibilities…" he tried to pull the information from his mind, he could see it but just couldn't seem to get the phrasing right. The librarian, a woman who looked like she'd attended church regularly all her life and had probably spent many an afternoon 'shush ing' rambunctious children in the Kids section cocked her head and exhibited some of the patience that seemed to roll off of her.

"Maybe it'll help if you can think of a category…" she suggested kindly.

"Yes!... Science… theoretical science… expanding universe stuff… infinite…uhg.. infinite… possibilities…. nothing in two places at the same time.. Jeez I feel like a chimpanzee trying to write Shakespeare!" he groaned with a weak smile.

"Was it a periodical?" she asked with a chuckle.

"Mmmm monthly mag I think or maybe quarterly… not sure which…"

"Okay, that would be maybe… Omni? Scientific American? Discovery Magazine?... any of them sounding familiar?" she asked.

"Yeah…" Dean nodded scratching his head while his mouth bowed down into a frown, "… but which one… damnit Laura! This is all your fault…" he smiled awkwardly when the woman before him frowned questioningly, "…Uh… my… girlfriend? I guess she's my girlfriend, I mean she's a girl and she's my friend… well more than that… I mean so much more… you couldn't believe what she's…and I really _do_…" he stopped short and cleared his throat, "Yeah, anyway… she's into all this theoretical physics and multiple universes…Gah! That's it! MULTIVERSE!... Oh man… Oh man… which one was it…"

The librarian smiled hugely, amused by his confusion and queried the computer. A scant second later she looked up into his handsome expectant face and thought, _what I wouldn't have given to inspire a look like that in a man at that age…_ "That would probably be Scientific American, they seem to have the most articles of that nature… but which month and year?" she asked grinning hugely at him.

"How many of them do you have?" he asked grinning sheepishly.

--

"Sam? Sammy…" he smiled while dropping a hand onto his little brother's shoulder.

Sam's eyes flapped open on butterfly wings and the faintest smile tilted his lips, "…shouldn't be here… feebs are watching me…"

"I know…I got one of the nurses to report a sighting down on Main and Higman…" he grinned.

Sam shook his head, his brows knitting into that trademark curious look that told Dean his brother was going to be alright after all, "…ow?" he breathed.

"I stopped for coffee… she was getting coffee…" he nodded brushing his brother's hair off his face, "Man Sam… I am so sorry… I couldn't… there's something going on here… something big and wrong… and I couldn't stop myself from standing up… on a positive note I don't feel like I'm going to birth an Alien through my peter any time soon any more… so that's gotta be good!"

"Stone?…" Sam muttered grinning with those mile deep dimples that could get women sighing happily at the slightest flash.

"Ooh… never thought about that…" he shifted his 'furniture' gently, "Hurt like hell though…whatever it was…"

"…so you're not crazy now?" Sam slurred grasping his brother's hand.

Dean squinted an eye and pursed his lips, taking a mental inventory, "Not that I know… but then again… y'never know…"

"…said there was a light…" Sam mumbled, his eyes fading and his grip loosening.

"Oh yeah… dude it was really pretty… kinda white and blue-ish… but in a good way not in a Blue Meanie kind of way…"

"…Mmmm lovely glove…" Sam smiled squeezing his big brothers' hand, "…go Dean… go… they're coming…" and sleep took him.

Dean's eyebrows arched and he shrugged with his mouth, "Dude oughtta get you stoned more often…" he smiled slipping from the room and out onto the street. _Alright… whatever's happening here… since I'm the dipshit that took geekboy out of the equation, I guess I need to do my own research… _he sighed, _Library Hooo oooh! _he could almost feel his arm in the air, leading his own mental wagon train to whatever answers he might be able to find.

--

Sam had been back and forth to the bar for more than three hours and Dean still hadn't shown. He checked the time again and dialed his brother's cell phone, again he got the generic recording, _beyond the service area! I can't believe there's still such a thing! Come on Dean! Where the hell are you? And more importantly, are you okay?_ he wondered swigging on his beer with his eyes on the door.

He wondered if he should go back to the motel, maybe Dean had returned after all. He'd checked the hospital, inquiring about any John Doe brought in with a head wound, still no luck and he'd been at the Sheriff's station most of the afternoon so he was certain he hadn't been arrested.

He tilted the last of the beer down his throat as the door opened and the filthy figure of his brother hobbled into the bar, nodding at him curtly. He swallowed wrong and the beer coursed down the wrong pipe.

Dean gimped to him frowning and started pounding on his back, "Dude that's twice, what's up with you?"

Sam waved him off and motioned for a couple more beers while taking in the dirt and mud caked visage before him, "What the hell happened to you? Where've you been? I've been trying to call you for three hours!"

Dean reached into his pocket and slapped a handful of mud and cell phone parts onto the table.

"AGAIN! What is it with you!" Sam asked smiling but still mystified, Dean had been having the worst luck with cell phones lately.

He shrugged sheepishly and took the beer that was set before him then finally sat across from his little brother, "We got a problem…" he said quietly.

Sam leaned in, "Big?"

Dean nodded.

"Demon big?" he asked.

Dean shrugged, "I don't know," he admitted with wide troubled eyes.

"Then why are we sitting here drinking beers?" Sam asked swinging his jacket on.

"Uh… because I'm thirsty… I've been walking the perimeter, then back and forth from there to the town hall to the library and back again at least twice in the last five hours Sam… I'm hungry, I'm thirsty and in case you didn't notice I took a header into a bog and I'm soaked to my shorts…" he smirked.

"How's you head?" Sam asked suddenly.

Dean shook it, "Fine… OH! yeah the… stuff…"

"Yeah, the 'stuff'… anything new?" Sam asked.

Dean shook his head yes/no, "Sick stuff Sam… you don't wanna know…" he gulped down more of his beer.

"How 'bout your belly?" Sam asked.

"Dude what is this twenty questions? I'm fine… must've passed a stone or something… hey long as I'm not peeing pink anymore I'm fine…"

"WHAT!?" Sam demanded furiously, this was the first he'd heard of any physical signs of anything.

"Relax… it was just a couple times and we've got more important things to worry about than me popping out a kidney stone or something," he winced and shifted grimacing, _no way in hell I'm telling you the truth on this one little bro… you're jumpy enough…_ "Hurt like a muther though I'll tell you that for sure!"

"Alright… you're sure you're okay?" Sam put his concern on the back burner to let it simmer, _but you can bet your stones we're coming back to this Dean…I need you! and I need you healthy! _

"Sam!" Dean barked softly.

"Okay okay… so what'd you find out?"

Dean grabbed both bottles of beer, stuck one into his jacket pocket and rose to his feet with a sigh, "Come on…" he led Sam out into the early evening sunshine, "Y'know technically I'm only two hours late, we said we'd meet at three it's only 5:15 y'know…"

"So I got done early," Sam elbowed him as they walked down Main leaving the impala behind.

"You have no concept of time…" Dean teased and burst out laughing, his head full of things he'd read that would be more well suited to a conversation with Ash rather than Sam.

"You do realize you're being a complete freak don't you?" Sam asked as Dean guided him through a series of alleys and side streets until they reached the edge of the surrounding forest.

"Hey just trying to take some of the load off your shoulders…" he grunted with a good natured shove.

--

"You said perimeter Dean…perimeter of what?" Sam asked about three miles into the woods.

"The… event horizon I guess you could call it…" he pointed to a twisted couple of small tree limbs braced against a trunk, "There's the first one I found."

"First one what?" Sam asked.

"Come on geek-boy…you think I'm gonna ruin the surprise now?" he snickered but Sam stopped in his tracks and turned to face him frowning deeply.

"Dean walk in front of me," Sam stepped to the side and motioned him forward.

"What?" Dean asked.

"Walk in front of me… You're the one who had me hide the weapons, you're the one asked if you shot me, you're the one who's been 'seeing' what you're calling horrible things that you won't tell me about… and you're the one who hasn't been sleeping…" Sam pointed out.

Dean nodded, "Valid point…" he moved to the marking he'd made and moved it aside, making sure to keep his empty hands visible to his brother at all times. He was a little taken aback by Sam's paranoia, even if he had instilled it himself, but he was glad his little brother was being diligent just the same. He knelt at the mound and pointed to something the color of pale flesh, it was small, about the length of Dean's forearm and looked jointed. "There's not even any insects chowing on it… no sign of predation at all even though it's definitely starting to rot and _should _be half gone or more if from nothing other than insects…"

Sam stepped closer frowning, unsure if it was some kind of ruse or what, "It looks like part of a doll Dean… what're you…Oh man!" he cringed straightening up quickly as his brother fanned a palm-load of rot scent toward him, "Okay… so it's not a doll… is it a kid?"

Dean spocked his eyebrow at his brother and pursed his lips, "Dude… would you LOOK at this thing? I'm not going to hurt you…"

Sam breathed deep and nodded, _Well… even if he does try something it won't be the first brawl we've gotten into… I can give him a run for his money…_ Sam thought and crouched next to his big brother paying close attention to his guts, trying to listen to his instincts for any hint of anything amiss.

"Is that hair?" he asked looking at Dean who nodded.

"Think Sam… who do we know…" he started.

"The Sidhe?" Sam asked remembering the tiny warriors that had stood their ground at Bobby's house, protecting Bobby, Dean and John while he'd slid a dagger into Laura's throat. Of course he hadn't quite been himself at the time, but when it was all over the Sidhe warriors had brought them all together again and left them with a sense that things would turn out just fine.

"I'm pretty sure…" Dean frowned sitting down with his arms over his knees, "… there's Faerie folk parts all over the place… and it's all along the perimeter from what I can tell…just based on the geometry and degree of curvature, I'm guessing the event horizon has to be about fifteen miles in circumference…" he sighed and watched Sam examine the limb a little more closely before moving upwind of it and sitting next to him.

His hand snaked into Dean's jacket pocket and pulled out the beer. He downed half of it quickly and handed the rest to his brother who finished it.

"Okay… do you have any idea of what exactly this is an event horizon of?" he sighed looking into Dean's eyes.

"Oddly enough Professor… I think I do…" he smiled somberly and withdrew a few dozen sheets of paper from his other inside jacket pocket, "They're a little soggy… but thankfully still legible," he handed them to Sam and watched his little brother's expression run the gamut while he skimmed the article titles and highlighted points as he browsed the pages.

--

tbc.

Not much action, not much sick… sorry.

Please R&R anyway, would love to know what y'all 're thinking right now.

thanks.

sifi .


	11. Chapter 11

Fragment – chpt 11.

by: sifi.

--

"Dean where the hell did you ever come up with an idea like this?" Sam asked flapping the sheaf of paper at his brother as he toweled his hair dry and sat on the edge of the bed to put his socks on.

"Hey, don't look at me man… it's not like I thought of the stuff… I just… ran across it once… or twice…" he muttered returning to the bathroom where he was still trying to brush the smell of rot from the back of his mouth.

Sam shook his head and rose to stand in the bathroom doorway, "Dude this is some pretty heady stuff here… multiple universes, anywhere from 6 to eleven different dimensions and the nearest identical universe… according to some of these articles just a chess move away? I mean Dean… this isn't the kind of stuff you come across going through obits!" he smirked watching his brother's expression in the mirror, "How much of this do you actually understand?" he asked.

Dean straightened up wiping the toothpaste off his mouth and looked his little brother directly in the eye, "Hey… it's a _cosmological_ chess move away… remember that…" Dean pointed and smiled wryly, "Some… the basics I'm okay with but other than that… not much…" he admitted.

"Better you than me I guess… " Sam grinned shaking his head, "Okay… so I don't have to ask where or… rather who exposed you to this stuff…"

"Yeah…" Dean nodded leaning forward conspiratorially, "… it gets her hot…"

"Dean!" Sam barked surprised while furrowing his eyebrows.

"Oh yeah… the word 'multiverse'… man I'm telling you! she starts to howl like Lassie!" the older Winchester teased watching his brother turn crimson.

"Kim Cattrall from Porky's or the actual dog? Oh Man! Nevermind!" Sam pointed grinning, "You're sick you know that?"

"Hey it's _her_ fetish…" Dean shrugged grinning while he slid his feet into his boots and chuckled.

"You're a freakin' perv!" Sam smiled tossing the towel at him.

"That's _cosmological_ perv…" he pointed with the same spocked eyebrow and trademark smirk.

--

Dean walked through the house examining the cumulative pieces of someone else's life, apparently several someone's lived here. A wife, two children, one boy, one girl, and of course… _daddy, dead in the garage…oops, guess I got carried away there…_ he chuckled and picked a piece off the stack of mail on a table near the front door, _Gary… sorry 'bout that… well, not really… hey at least one of us had fun…_ he shrugged inside and felt warm fingers of arousal begin to tease him once again, _What is it about taking what you want that's such a God damn turn-on? Power man… seriously… look at it all… psycho's, sociopaths, abusers, rapists, murderers… power… even the poltergeists and the angry spirits and the demons… power… just because they can… and it's a total freakin' rush! Winston Churchill I think said it? "Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac…" brilliant man! Seriously brilliant! _He glanced at the family portrait hung over the fire place, _see this, these folks right here need to be delivered from this Norman Rockwell-ized hell… I'll take Norman Bates any day! I'll be doin' them a favor… and mom's kind of a looker… well she might've been once… wonder if the kids'll want to watch? Hmm. _

"_What're you doin' Dean?" _

"What!?" he startled turning in a quick circle, the picture frame slid out of his hand and clattered to the table while his gun found its way into his hand.

He moved through the house, one room at a time, checking everything from closets to under the beds and dressers just in case one of the kids was home playing some kind of sick game. The twisting in his guts was telling him something else was going on here, it wasn't children, well not the Murphy children anyway.

_How long does it take for a ghost to start haunting someone? A year? Ten?_ he looked at his watch, _Five and a half hours?_ and giggled, _Guess I shoulda salted and burned ya baby boy…it's okay… I'll get around to it… once they put you in the ground… done more than my share of grave digging... isn't that right little brother? Isn't that right...? _

He found himself in the kitchen, rummaging through the refrigerator, a piece of last night's left over chicken hanging out of his mouth while he sifted through Gary's microbrew collection.

"_Dean… don't do this..." _

"Screw you Sammy! I'm DOING this! I'm gonna DO each and every one of 'em… the mom the kids, ONE by ONE in FRONT of each other and maybe I'll even do daddy again unless you SHUT THE HELL UP!" he threatened the empty air around him.

"Yeah that's right you little shit! You shut the hell up and STAY SHUT UP! and maybe it won't be so bad… maybe I'll just… watch cartoons with the kids till Mom comes home… maybe I won't show them dad… maybe I won't take little Gary junior into the garage and DO HIM over DADDY'S CORPSE!" he panted and swept his hand down his face, palming the sweat away while his heart thundered in his chest so hard it made his stomach vibrate.

--

_Oh no… please no more…_Dean thought as images of two kids and their mother came to him, he felt what he'd begun to realize, after the whole hoarking up a belly full of coffee and bile while choking on a horrible vision of his father's face bathed in blood, was a 'different' Dean, growing furious and scared at the same time. He caught a glimpse of what this other Dean was planning, or threatening, or envisioning and wondered if there was anything he could do to stop it… _a mother and her children…_ and he caught a glimpse of the man he'd raped and killed lying on the garage floor, _no, not me… him… the other one…how could I? He? Me… ANY me do something like that?_ he wondered while casting a furtive glance around the library, trying to make sure he hadn't drawn any attention to himself.

The words on the pages spread before him both confused and enlightened him. _Well, if I can just try to distill it down to its essential components and theories I might be able to get it… I wish Laura was here, she'd be able to help me with this… wherever you are honey, I hope you're okay, I hope you know I love you and I miss you._ He pursed his lips and scratched his head, trying to fathom the concept of a Level I Multiverse.

--

"Move, move, move! Now! Go, go, go!" she waved those few left of the Sidhe warriors on ahead of her while darkness encroached from behind, the sound of an entire universe cracking sharp and thunderous from everywhere for all of eternity rolling through them.

The one she called Mustard Seed, borrowing from Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, grabbed her hand and tried to pull her forward with the rest of them, but she shook her head and met his eyes.

"GO! I'll be fine…" she urged knowing it was more the look on her face that convinced him rather than her words. They understood human speech, and she'd come to understand if not being able to speak their language over the last few weeks in particular, and she knew he wanted to stand beside her, to die if necessary fighting for his world though its loss was now a certainty. "I'm sorry…" she hitched her breath drawing the sword they'd forged especially for her, out of the sheath at her waist. She knelt and cupped his cheek sweeping his quivering lips with hers, "The humans will never understand… but you'll survive… what's left of your people will survive in my world, that's got to mean something…" she shook her head, tears falling shamelessly as he clasped his tiny arms around her neck, kissed her cheek and followed his brethren, leaving this chosen emissary of their ally to stave off the marauder that killed an entire universe, for as long as possible.

--

"Okay… seriously this is interesting and all… but I don't see the correlation between these multiverses and what's going on here Dean… I mean we're talking about people going insane and committing atrocities while they're asleep…" Sam shook his head while Dean unloaded their dinner onto the table, "What'd you do? Get one of everything?" he asked with a grin while looking over the smorgasbord his brother had brought back.

"Told you man I'm freakin' hungry…" Dean picked up a wax paper log that weighed easily two pounds and tossed it to his brother, "Meatball sandwich for my favorite meatball…" he smiled.

"Thanks," he grinned curiously.

"Think about it Sammy…historically speaking, this region has the highest number of sleepwalk incidents per capita than anywhere else in the U.S. Now, usually this is a pretty benign thing… UNTIL say maybe one of these little neighboring cosmic billiard balls we call a universe bumps into ours, maybe there's some spill over, some distortion in reality that makes people go nuts… and believe me dude…if you'd been seeing the kind of stuff I've been seeing… seriously spew encouraging… then the pain…" he closed his eyes and grimaced as his muscles tightened with the memory of not just the pain in his lower abdomen but the sensation of tearing his own skin off and the burning that came with it, "… God the freakin' pain Sam…" he breathed hard looking into his little brother's worried frown before shoving it away and blanking his face but it was too late.

"I'm sorry man… I'm sorry I can't take it from you, or share the load… or… help…" he shrugged.

Dean cocked half a smile, "It's alright… one of 'em's dead now anyway…the one that had the most pain…" he remembered a flash of John's face sprayed with dark red speckles as he felt the timbre of his voice against his chest.

"What do you _mean_ one of 'em's dead?" Sam asked frowning deeply.

"Hmm?" Dean questioned coming out of the memory, "Nothing, never mind… it's not important… the thing is what if something happened that caused some kind of a shift in these little universes… and the borders are just kind of bouncing against each other frakkin' up this little bit of OUR universe…" he theorized.

Sam thought hard while popping the remnant of his first meatball into his mouth, "I'm guessing there'd be nothing we could do about it…but would there be an EMF border to follow?" he asked then seemed to think, "…yeah… it's possible… I mean if there's literal energy membranes that separate universes then it could be read as EMF I guess…"

"Right," Dean nodded taking half a piece of pizza into his mouth at once.

"So… any theories on why you're the one getting the images and injuries instead of your friendly neighborhood psychic freak?" Sam asked spreading his arms wide and wishing he could take away some of what his brother had been enduring.

He'd seen moments of pain cross Dean's features since they arrived, but they'd been short or so he'd been led to believe. He hadn't realized there were physical symptoms of anything either, _Maybe it was just a stone or something if he was peeing blood, but that look_, the moment of crushing desperation that rolled through his big brother's face when he'd mentioned the pain he'd felt. Sam hadn't realized it could've been that bad. Dean always had been able to hide his discomfort far too well for his own well being, _damnit… if I'm not more careful I'm going to lose him! Damnit Dean! You can't keep burying it all inside! You've said it yourself NOTHING STAYS BURIED…please… whatever you're carrying…it's going to kill you…please let me share the load man… please…_

Dean eyed him curiously, always in tune with when Sam was contemplating something onerous. _Damn that 'mom' vision of his…_ Sam shook his head, shrugged with his mouth and blanked his face waiting for his brother to theorize.

"Not really… I mean the only thing I can think is because of what's going on with the other Deans…" he muttered around his beer bottle.

"Other Deans?" Sam asked and felt his temper starting to rise, "…and one of 'em's dead now? Dean! What the hell? Dead how? How do we know this isn't going to… I don't know… bleed through and get you hurt?" his eyes bulged wide and he rose to his feet to pace the room, needing to expend some of the anxiety that was rolling inside his chest, "You've had physical manifestations of stuff that's been happening... potentially in another freakin' universe! You said it yourself when you told me to ditch the weapons, you were afraid you might do something! and now you tell me that some alternate YOU is dead… and you're not worried about this?!" he stormed accusingly.

_Yeah well you're dead in at least TWO of them that I can tell and it sure as hell isn't affecting you here! Thank God for that…_Dean shrugged watching his little brother roll around, a captive storm, "There's not much I can do about it Sam… it's just a shame it wasn't the other one…"

"What?!" Sam barked.

Dean half shrugged, "Yeah well there's one out there that isn't such a nice guy as me."

--

Dean heard the door to the library open and glanced up, something had set his senses on high alert and he knew why. _Crap!_ he cursed internally grabbing his research notes and crouching under the table to lose himself in the stacks.

_Damned Feds! If those bastards would just exhume the s.o.b.'s body I'd have a chance to clear my freakin' name! Course the fingerprints are almost certainly decayed off by now… then again… maybe not…_ he thought about it as a shadow attempting to move stealthily crossed the window ahead of him. _Son of a bitch!..._ he looked desperately around for a vent, a window… anything and realized he didn't have many opportunities open to him.

--

tbc.

Almost there…

Please R&R…

Thanks, sifi.


	12. Chapter 12

Fragment – chpt 12.

by: sifi.

--

He ducked into a stairwell breathing hard through his mouth in an effort to keep it quiet while he kept his eyes glued to the street, _Man that was freakin' close! It's getting hot around here… I gotta figure out what's going on and put a stop to it before they catch me and haul my ass in… not that I mind three hots and a cot for a couple days but I'm sure as hell not leaving Sammy alone… not in this frelled up little 'burg, and sure as hell NOT without protection…_ from the corner of his eye he watched the limbs of a tree waving at him in the breeze and he smiled. He could very easily hold his own in the surrounding forest and use the opportunity to see if there was any kind of odd EMF readings in the area that might help him figure out what exactly he was dealing with.

_Yeah, well if these God awful visions are related to this… multidimensionality crap it's no wonder people are freaking out! But, first thing's first… let's see if there's anything particularly supernatural about the area to begin with. _

As he moved stealthily among the shadows, heading for the sanctuary of the forest he couldn't help but wonder what exactly it was that kept other planes of existence separate from his, and were they really separate at all. Finally as he slowed to a jog, his head pounding in time with his heart he put his contemplations on a back burner when his eye fell on a grey/white slab of something that was about the size of his forearm and appeared to be jointed. The smell of rot found its way up his nose from a dozen yards away and his skin began to crawl.

--

"Dean?" Sam asked watching his brothers' face go slack, as if he was searching his memory for some long lost factoid.

In his seat, across the table from him, with a slice of pizza in his hand Dean huffed, the food forgotten as it tumbled from his fingers and his teeth clamped down on his lower lip. His face screwed up with agony of a different kind and quickly began to pour sweat as his eyes filled with tears and torment.

"Dean! What is it?" Sam set what was left of his sandwich on the table, his heart thundering within though he heard nothing but the faintest whispered denial from his brother's mouth.

"Don't…"

"Dean what is it?!" Sam half demanded leaning forward as Dean's palms slammed down on the tabletop and he rose an inch or two from his seat.

"NO! Do You HEAR ME YOU SICK FK… DON'T YOU TOUCH THEM!" he screamed bounding out of his chair, his arms reaching for something only he could see as he turned, heading for a header over the bed.

Sam moved like lightening, grasping his brother and turning him toward the most open area of the room, giving his body room to maneuver while his mind was somewhere he knew he didn't want to fathom. If he hadn't been frightened enough for his hands to be shaking, watching his big brother lurch and shadow box an adversary he couldn't see might've been funny…. except he'd actually said Fk… and that wasn't a word Dean used lightly.

"NO!... NO, NO, NO! GOD DAMNIT! Don't you touch them!" he screamed pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes in an effort to shut out the horror. He fell to his knees for a brief moment then rose lurching to his feet and ran head first into the corner wall that separated the sleeping area from the bathroom, with a look full of murder on his face.

Sam scrambled to him, blanching at the raw hatred he saw twisting his brother's usually gentle features. He'd NEVER seen Dean look like that, not when he was threatening Meg to get information about their father, not when he'd cut that vampire's head off with slow, hot, relish, not even when he'd been staring into those oily yellow eyes that looked out at him from their father's face. Sam's stomach flipped and he could feel his meatball sandwich roiling on a stormy sea as Dean slid down the wall, his arms wrapped around the corner, holding on, maybe for his own sanity while he tried to hold back sobs and denials, shaking his head, "You can't do that… God don't do that… please… never kids… never the kids… you can't do that… I would NEVER do that…"

He seemed to settle for a minute while his breath leveled out a bit. He pulled himself to his feet with Sam an arms' length away should he be needed, and stumbled to the bathroom where he leaned over the sink and doused himself with cold water.

His hands clutched the edge of the sink and his eyes came up, meeting those of his reflection in the mirror, then hell broke out of him.

--

Laura dropped to her knees breathless and tried to ignore the stinging pain of having crashed through a shattering barrier between worlds. At first it hadn't been so bad, as if the barrier were moving with her, as if some remnant of it were protecting her but the longer she'd run, the more deeply she moved into this new universe the worse it hurt. The elemental magiks they'd worked to allow the Sidhe to escape to her world had shattered in the way of a Christmas ornament, leaving her stranded until she could find a hole in the fabric through which to escape.

_I just want to see him, God how I've missed you, you never have to love me back honey, just let me love you…just a little…just let me look at you for a little while,_ she thought realizing with 20/20 hindsight why she'd felt so compelled to make her last stand where she had. Apparently, part of her had known he and Sammy would come, that they alone would be the ones to investigate if indeed there were any repercussions in their own world, from the collapse of an entire universe. The Winchester brother's, and quite probably no others would see clues and come investigate, which explained why she chose this region, a place where it was literally possible for universes to collide. If she lost the Sidhe universe, which apparently buffered several others, and even if she fell to the marauder or its minions, she could in a sense, know that the man she loved might be somewhere close by.

She looked up breathing through the sting of the cuts on her flesh and saw him cross her line of vision, _Ahh Dean… I thought I could feel you nearby…I love you…_ she thought smiling and for the moment, unable to call out to him. He was almost beyond the focus of her immediate sight when she felt something she couldn't understand rolling off of him. Her stomach fell hollow, and her heart felt as if it was about to crack, _you're not MY Dean are you…I'm not home am I? _her throat tightened and she sniffed wondering how far she really was from her own home. _Maybe… will he help me? _

He was almost beyond her focal point when he felt warmth and turned his head, stopping dead in his tracks, his eyes narrowing, shapes, blurs, and shadows taking on meaning as he turned and leaned toward that kneeling panting figure.

"What the hell?" he huffed drawing his arm across his eyes, wiping away the agony of his frustration, gladly shoving aside the horrors he'd just seen and the pain he'd just felt from that 'other' Dean, the one that still had Sammy at his side, the one that was trying to tear himself to pieces at the moment.

"Laura?" he lurched toward her as her head came up and she smiled, that same smile she held in reserve just for him.

"Hey sweetie…" she panted tearfully, her hand shaking like a leaf as she reached up and touched his face.

"Oh my God… what happened? Where have you been? You're bleeding… you're... blue…" he gasped tilting her chin so he could look into her eyes.

She nodded with a faint, pained smile, "…and naked…"

Getting the hint he started to shrug out of his jacket but she stopped him, "…it's okay…don't… I don't think…"

His eyes narrowed hard at her and he looked at her suspiciously, "I was right…You're not MY Laura… are you?" he finished with a smile while tracing the side of her cheek with his thumb.

She shook her head, "I don't think so,"

"What's your favorite song?" he asked with a half smile praying his ears would hear her say, '_Because The Night_'.

She smiled weakly, "Currently… 'Everything', by Lifehouse…"

He smiled sadly, "So you belong to the other one huh?" he asked and nodded to himself, "T'sokay…" he swallowed hard, "Can you help me honey? Tell me what's going on here? Why am I seeing these… horrible things… please… help me understand and tell me what I have to do to stop it…" he urged grasping her shoulders.

She chuckled tearfully and stroked his cheek, "What horrible things?" she asked wondering what exactly he'd been able to figure and what he hadn't.

"It has to do with other realms, other universes doesn't it?... like that time I followed you into the veiled realm right?" he asked.

She nodded, "You did that here too huh?" she chuckled wondering if he and his Laura had made love in the stronghold too, "What is it that's been happening that brought you guys here?" she asked needing to know for herself before she could explain to him the tragedy she'd been helpless to stop over the last couple months.

"Do you know where MY girl is?" he asked later, choking on the possibility that something might have happened to her.

"I don't know… maybe in some other alternate Sidhe world trying to keep it from collapsing… maybe… I'm sorry sweetie… I wish I knew… I'd tell you if I did I promise…" she sniffed as he grasped her into his arms and held her against himself, his lips resting at her temple.

"She'd remember… I mean YOU'D remember to stay safe for me right? So she'll remember too right?... I love her so much it's killing me not knowing where she is or if she's okay…thank God I didn't let her go without telling her…so she'll remember I love her right?" he asked holding her tightly, unable to look at her knowing she wasn't his and couldn't stay.

In his arms she drew a shaky breath and pressed her lips to his jawbone then smiled, "Any girl who had a man like you to come home to would do anything to stay safe, and yeah, don't you worry sweetie… she'll remember you love her… she'd never forget that," she assured him wondering how she was managing to hold back the flood of tears that were threatening, then figured she was doing it for him. _Yeah, there'll be time to cry later…just let me see mine one more time…that's all I need. _

"How can I help?" he asked finally, not wanting to get too comfortable with someone else's girl in his arms.

"Got any silver?" she asked smiling sadly.

--

Dean stood up straight, a satisfied smirk on his face as he examined his handiwork, tucked himself back in and zipped his fly with relish. The faces before him, streaked with gore, tears and filth, their sweet young lips trembling over the gags tied around their heads, their big liquid 'precious moment' eyes pleading with him. Their fear was palpable, cutting through him with sharp singing glee.

What made it all the more exciting was the brutal impotence he felt from that 'other' one, the one who still had its own Sam, the one who was still holding on to his father's hope that everything would be alright in the end, the optimistic fool who refused to acknowledge his own barbarism. The one who's skin was shredding and latticed with glass much like Sam's silken back had been when Eddy Jay shattered that crystal lamp base at him.

He could hear that 'other' Dean begging him to stop, threatening him futilely, pleading with him, 'not kids! never kids…' and he laughed looking at his two little prizes. He'd save them for later, for now he was enjoying the self loathing of that 'other' one just a little too much.

--

"Dean! Dean stop it! What're you doing? C'mon man knock it off….Dean!" Sam grabbed and clawed trying to get hold of his brother who seemed to have completely gone berserk.

The first hit had come as a surprise with Sam standing in the doorway of the bathroom, watching his brother splash cold water on his face after what he could only figure was a particularly horrible visual assault.

_He said children… not kids… I wonder… no, I don't want to know…_he felt his body vibrating with fear when the 'assault' started, though he'd been trying to keep his cool while his big brother dealt with whatever horrors were being visited upon his mind but there was just too much he was trying to wrap his own mind around at the moment.

He thought the worst had passed when Dean pulled himself to his feet and stumbled, his lungs grabbing for air, to the bathroom. Then, as Sam felt his heart beat starting to return to normal, an expression of hatred so base, so filled with pure loathing leaped across his face and his fists began to fly.

Sam wasn't sure what set his heart racing harder; watching his brother reduced to tears, the first shocking blow of his hands against the mirror, attacking his own image with feral intent, or the explosive shattering of glass that cascaded down the wall, slicing and tearing into his hands and arms while blood flowed freely splattering the walls and sink and streaking across the both of them as Sam dove in. He felt himself reaching and grabbing at those slicked fists that couldn't seem to stop raining blows into the wall and it all seemed so surreal even while guttural bursts of animal savagery came free of Dean's chest and throat.

"Dean! STOP IT!" he called, his voice breaking while his hands clasped hard on his brothers' wrists, his fingers locking but not fast enough on the blood slicked skin. He changed his tactic, grabbing Dean by his upper arms and shouldering him across the bathroom and into the wall. "Please…" he whispered.

A heartbeat later, a sound Sam had only heard once before in the whole of his life ripped into the air. He shuddered knowing the first and last time he'd heard it was after they'd finally finished off Eddy Jay and Aaron Beyers. He'd stood outside their motel room window after Laura had arrived and he'd heard that same sound while he watched his invulnerable big brother sob in the arms of the only person he was willing to, at that time, allow to see him vulnerable . But time had changed the Winchester boys, the last year, not to mention the last six months alone had taken two men who'd let themselves become strangers and made them brothers once more. Sam felt his eyes fill with empathy while his arms wrapped around his sibling, even as Dean beat his shoulders and back for as long as he needed before the older hunter slid down against him, his fists becoming claws that gripped and held deep.

Stunned and quaking with fear, Sam knelt with him on the floor and did the only thing Dean would always forgive him for.

--

tbc.

please R&R.

Thanks, sifi.


	13. Chapter 13

Fragment – chpt 13.

by: sifi.

--

Sam glanced up from his brother's hand, _Yep, still gone…_ he noted the utterly blank look on Dean's face. What had him the most frightened was just how empty his big brother's crystalline green eyes were. _No lights on... nobody home... come on Dean… come back home man… please,_ but he said nothing as he continued to tweeze the glass fragments from the hand he held while cleaning the small rivulets of red that wound around the hair on his arms and wrists.

He'd never known twenty two minutes to take a lifetime to pass before, but once Sam had gotten Dean to his feet and out into the living room he'd glanced at the clock. _Twenty two minutes ago he was wolfing down half a pizza… twenty two minutes ago he was whole… please let him still be whole…how many other Deans is he seeing? What are they doing that's hurting him like this? Who killed the one that's dead? and Why? I don't give a damn what's happening here… I gotta get him out of this place… whatever it is… it's regional, if it's really this multiverse crap and they're all just pinging around right here… I need to get him away from here…it's that simple_, Sam nodded to himself and glanced up from a rather large sliver of glass sticking pointedly out from the thumb side of his brother's wrist, embedded by chance directly through the large vein there, _I hope to hell that didn't sever the vein…_ he examined the thumb that was fed by the vessel, _it's still flesh toned so that's good… maybe it's just pierced… thumb's still warm… that's a good sign… _he breathed out shakily, glanced at the empty house before him and gingerly gripped the sliver with the tweezers.

--

"I've never seen you do this ritual before…" Dean smiled softly then caught her pained look and shrugged with his mouth, "…'cause I'm not yours…" he said softly.

Laura nodded, flicking her eyes against his before looking a little too intensely at the herbs she was tearing up.

"So…this isn't gonna send you into that 'evil' me's world is it? Cause if it is… y'know no matter which one of us you belong with… none of us… well neither of us would want you to end up with THAT one…" he tried to pry open that tightly closed and locked door she'd presented him with. He knew this one wasn't his girl, his Laura wouldn't keep herself bottled up with him, they shared what was going on inside with each other. It was perhaps the most valuable lesson she and Sam had taught him, that he never had to feel alone when they were there. _But this one… sheesh! It's like trying to pry the Charmin out of Mr. Whipple's hands! _

"No, this'll open a veil directly to my proper place… I'll be fine…" she assured him dryly.

"Laura… why are you blue?" he asked.

She chuckled and lit one of the haphazardly twisted smudge sticks they'd made, "I'm not sure… I think it's just how the body absorbs light in their universe…"

"So it'll fade like it did on the…" _body parts I found?_ he stopped himself from asking.

"Yeah, I'll be normal color eventually, I think…" she smiled.

He smiled dropping his hand onto hers, "I'd venture to bet he won't care just as long as he gets you back."

She smiled and felt the film over her eyes finally break, letting the tears slide down her cheeks, "Just stop it Dean okay? Please…he… I… we just… just let me have what I've got okay?" she choked palming away her tears before smiling and shaking her head and squeezing his hand, "Sorry…" she sighed.

Dean tilted her chin gently, making her look at him, "There's nothing to be sorry about… Listen, I don't know what's standing between you two in your world… but from what I've seen… your Dean's a pretty okay guy…not as cool as me mind you… course who is huh? Still… he's alright…" he joked, _my hands still hurt from his temper tantrum… course I can't blame him…_

She laughed looking into those eyes she knew so well, "He's the best…I guess I just really miss him… kinda hurts to dwell on…"

Dean nodded and pursed his lips, "Bullshit…I know when you're hiding something… you don't do it often so I'm real good at spotting it… whatever he did so help me…"

"No… sweetie it's nothing like that… really…" she shook her head and held his hand looking earnestly into his eyes, "Really… he gives me everything I need!..." she smiled touching his cheek "He IS everything I need…"

He squinted hard at her as if he was trying to read her mind. Finally she cracked the smile he knew he could pry out of her and he leaned forward, pressing their mouths together a familiar thrill for them both that no universe seemed able to deny.

"Then let's get you back to him… I really think you should take my jacket…" he smirked.

She shook her head, "It's okay…"

Dean shook his head, "Okay… okay… hold on…" he stripped off the jacket and took his flannel off, "Why I didn't think of this earlier… musta just liked lookin' at cha nekked…" he smirked sliding his jacket back on over his t-shirt while she wrapped herself into his flannel, immersing herself in him with a wistful smile that never failed to melt his heart.

"Uh… why _are_ you naked?" he asked.

She shrugged and twisted her mouth into a half smile, "When in Rome?"

--

"Make one move and I'll start flingin' kiddie parts out into the front yard so help me God!" he warned into the receiver while tilting the bottle in his hand upwards. His eyes flicked to this two little prizes tied back to back in the corner. He hadn't done anything they couldn't recover from just yet, _Not without a couple lifetimes worth of counseling anyway…_he smirked to himself, his arm whipping the bottle into the corner where it and its contents exploded to rain down over the heads of the terrified children who screamed beneath their gags.

"_Dean…look at yourself… look at those kids over there… they're just KIDS Dean! Stop yourself before its too late…please…"_

"Shut Up SAMMY! I cut your GODDAMNED throat you whiney little FREAK! I SET you FREE and all you can do WHINE in my ear, 'Don't Do it Dean! They're just Kids Dean!' yeah well SO WERE YOU ONCE! You were MY KID SAMMY! MINE!... Dad might've blown his load into mom to make you but you WERE MINE!... Now SHUT UP before I SALT and BURN your WHINEY ASS!" he hollered, the phone in his hand all but forgotten as it clattered to the floor and he moved to the children, kneeling at their sides, a hand on either of their cheeks as his eyes filled and he felt pressure building in his head and chest, "Shhh… t'sokay…" he whispered, softly stroking their heads, "…t'sokay…" he leaned just a bit, his lips touching their temples, one by one before he pulled them to his chest and choked, "…okay… really…it's gonna be over soon…" he told them softly.

--

"Y'know I wish you'd told me about this before we burned half of those smudge sticks… and I hope to God he snuck out…" she whispered fiercely into his ear while she pressed him into a shadow and tilted her head to the side.

"That's my baby…" he grinned trying to get a look around the corner.

"I know… we just need to find out who's driving her!" she pressed him back and peered out into the street. There was only one head she could see through the windshield as Dean's beloved Impala purred toward them.

She felt his hands slide down her waist, over the flannel shirt that was like a short skirt on her, and grasp her rump playfully.

"Dean…" she whispered grinning and straightened up, motioning him to stay put while she stepped out onto the sidewalk almost certain it was Sam who was driving.

"Sorry… no I'm not…" he grinned hugely and shrugged.

In just another second she knew she was right, "I'm tellin' ya… you boys!" she leaned back into the shadow and smirked at Dean then stepped out again moving toward that gamely grinning Metallicar that was gliding toward them. She'd been unnerved at the hospital when she discovered Sam had disappeared, slipping out from under the nose of the Federal Agent that was stationed to keep watch for Dean's approach, but she knew these boys.

Waving her arms she stepped into the street.

"What the hell?" Sam cursed pressing slowly but firmly down on the brake, feeling a tight pull against the stitches in his belly as he drew the car to the curb. He looked at her curiously, unsure if he was really seeing what he thought he was seeing. She opened the passenger door and waved behind her.

"Scoot over Sam," she urged.

Dean dashed out from behind the building, jogging to the drivers' side while Sam put the car in park and slid stiffly over.

"Heya handsome…how you holding up?" she asked closing the passenger door and sliding into the back seat.

"Laura?! Where've you been?! Why are you blue?" he asked, his face scrunched with curiosity and confusion.

"I'll let Dean fill you in…" she smiled leaning forward and kissed his cheek then looked at Dean, "Just drop me off at the edge of the woods… I can handle the rest."

"You're sure?" he asked into the rear view mirror, "You could..."

She shook her head, "No I couldn't," she smiled.

"No… you couldn't," he agreed pulling away from the curb and taking the first right turn he could.

"What's goin' on here guys?" Sam asked dumbfounded.

"That my sweetie… is a very long story…" she sighed wrapping her arms around him from behind in an awkward hug.

She felt him squeeze her forearm as he tilted his head against hers for a moment while he frowned, "You're leaving again?" he asked looking out the corner of his eye at his brother.

"She has to Sammy…" Dean smiled sadly taking a mental snapshot of at least one version of his woman with his brother, two of the people he loved most in the world right next to him.

"Dean are you okay now?" Sam asked.

Slowly the older Winchester nodded in his typical yes/no manner, "Loaded question Sam… I'm not crazy if that's what you mean… but it was a pretty close call for a while there…" he admitted wryly.

"What happened?" he asked as Dean pulled to the shoulder of the road before a patch of forest.

"Sam did you check for tracking devices and stuff?" Laura asked. Sam nodded and she grinned, "You were right…" to Dean.

"That's my boy…" he grinned with a playful tussle to his brothers' perpetually overlong hair.

Laura kissed Sam's cheek once more while squeezing him gently, then waited on the shoulder for Dean to meet her. Sam watched his brother take her into his arms and hold her tight for a long moment that set his heart pounding with worry.

"Take care of yourself Laura… and you tell him… if he Ever… EVER… doesn't treat you right… he's gonna have ME to contend with!" he smiled drawing his thumb down her cheek and over her smiling lips.

She shook her head smiling wryly, "NOT something you have to worry about... EVER..." she nodded kissing him softly, "I hope your Laura comes home soon Dean…"

"Yeah," his smile turned tight, "me too."

The boys watched her take those first few steps into the forest where she was quickly swallowed by shadow. When it was certain she would not be returning Dean sighed and returned to the car sliding behind the wheel. He and Sam sat quietly for several minutes until the younger hunter couldn't take it any longer.

"Dude… what the hell's going on!?" he demanded.

Dean looked into the blue greens beside him, "…a universe rocked Sam…" he put the car into gear, "Did you get our stuff?" he asked.

Sam nodded, "Yeah it's in the trunk…"

"Good, let's get the hell out of here," he cast a glance up into the trees and frowned with his mouth, then pulled out onto the road.

--

tbc.

Well I guess I don't get to end it on 13 this time.

Please R&R… it's just a little further now…

Thanks.

sifi


	14. Chapter 14

Fragment – chpt 14.

by: sifi.

--

"Dean?" Sam said softly while he turned his head just enough to meet his eyes, "Come on Dean… talk to me man… what the hell's goin' on in there?" he asked feeling a hint of desperation growing in the pit of his belly. He'd finished cleaning and wrapping Dean's hands and forearms over half an hour ago and he hadn't moved, flinched, snarked, or anything. He'd been completely unresponsive until Sam came back from loading their bags into the trunk of the car. The only thing he could think of, to help pull his brother out of whatever it was that had him in its grip was to get him out of this town.

As if there hadn't been a terrifying time of near catatonia Dean's eyes shifted and met Sam's.

"Dean!?" Sam barked happily seeing his brother 'arrive' as it were.

"He's gonna get away Sam… that son of a bitch is gonna get away… and he's gonna be on the loose…" Dean croaked, his throat salty and dry as he started to work his body and noticed the bandages on his hands and arms.

"Who's gonna get away?" Sam asked, "The one who's not such a nice guy as you?"

Dean nodded and swallowed hard reaching stiffly for a bottle of water Sam handed to him, "He's got one of the kids… he killed all but one of 'em… God the… Sam…" he shook his head ashamed of what he'd seen, "…just so… I could NEVER do ANY of those things… there's a lot of things I could do, but I could NEVER do THOSE things Sam… you gotta know that…okay? Please… you just gotta know that…" he pleaded gripping his baby brother by the shirtfront, the desperation of his plea palpable between them.

Sam wrapped his hands around Dean's gently, holding his big brother's eyes with his own, he had no idea what Dean had seen and he didn't need to know. That whatever it was had reduced his big brother to such loathing and tears, he knew only that Dean needed his assurance and his faith, "I know you couldn't Dean… I know it…" he nodded and gripped his big brother at the neck and shoulder, "Listen to me… whatever's happening in this town… it's gonna drive you insane or kill you if we don't get you out of here okay?"

Dean nodded slowly and breathed deeply, bringing himself all the way back into his own world.

"Earlier when you said one of 'em was dead…" Sam started wondering if it would make any difference, if it COULD make any difference in this universe, "How'd he die?"

The simple question, in Dean's current state wasn't a simple one to answer. He'd been walking the perimeter of the event horizon, picking his way over the faintest crest of what could only be described as a bog. He'd been well aware of what that evil-Dean had done, how far gone he was and it made him violently ill in waves, but though he and the one he called wannabe-Dean were suffering their fair share physically, it was the one he called crazy-Dean who was suffering the worst. He'd realized that they all seemed to be aware of each other and he wondered if they'd tried contacting him like he'd tried to contact them. From what he could tell, contact or those moments of juxtaposition were completely out of their control.

As much as the prospect of crazy-Dean frightened him, especially since he'd seen what happened, it was that Dean who'd enabled him to see his father's face just a few more times. It wasn't that there _was_ a crazy-Dean that really upset him, it was _what_ had driven him crazy that was really scary. A night in a graveyard, a simple salting and burning gone horribly wrong, a trap laid by Big Bad who'd finally somehow managed to wend his way into Sam, using perhaps some moment of weakness to literally trip him up and take possession of the youngest Winchester.

Crazy-Dean saw those yellow eyes staring back at him from his baby brother's face and knew it was Sam's worst nightmare come true, to become a tool of evil, a thing used to hurt others, Sam would have preferred death, and that's what _that_ Dean gave him. Unfortunately, saving his brother's soul by taking his life had pushed that particular Dean over the edge. John had found him four days later, nearly having bled to death after days on end of slicing, peeling and tearing his own skin from his body in an insane effort of contrition.

_At least Dad's still alive in that universe… how long will he last? He killed crazy-Dean, I almost gagged on the taste of the steel… not that I blame you dad… death would have to be better than living like that… but it was soo good to see your face again… I miss you dad… more than you can know…and I'm doing my best to take care of Sammy…I'm not sure how much longer I can keep your secret though…but it's okay cause I'll be here to watch over him…We'll watch over each other dad…_

"Dean?" Sam asked casting a quick glance around the room, making sure they didn't miss anything. He'd cleaned up the mess in the bathroom as well as possible and left fifty dollars pinned to the wall to pay for a new mirror. "How'd he die?" he repeated.

Dean shook his head and smirked, "Loved."

"Any ideas where we go now?" Dean asked yawning hugely in the passenger seat as Sam pulled them out of the lot and onto the main drag.

"Anywhere that isn't this creepy little town, and anywhere we can BOTH get a good night's sleep! I swear if I have to crack you in the head… you're gonna sleep tonight…" Sam huffed.

"Y'know you're kinda cute when you're playing a mom…" Dean smirked scooting down to rest his head against the door.

"Shut up…" Sam drawled smiling, finally feeling the tension between his shoulders starting to ease as Dean began to doze.

At the last gas station on the edge of town Sam closed the door quietly but Dean cracked his eyes open anyway, _Damn… another ten minutes we'd've been skirting the forest and heading toward the freeway, _he thought watching Dean rub his bandaged hands over his face.

"'Sup?" he grunted, "I fell asleep?"

"Just filled up the tank and picked up some sodas… go back to sleep…" he urged.

"We still got some of that zaa right?"

"What I was gonna leave two days worth of food behind?... yeah… it's in the trunk… you want?"

Dean shook his head loosely, his eyes already closing again as Sam pulled out onto the street.

Metallicar's lights bouncing off the first few trees made Sam smile, knowing they were that much closer to the freeway. He could feel his shoulders drop a couple inches and the tightness between them and his neck begin to unwind, _Aaahhh finally… out of that asylum of a town…I wish we could've helped 'em but no way in hell am I gonna risk you bro… no way in hell… not after everything we've been.. _

"Sammy STOP!" Dean grunted, pulling himself back up from the depths of sleep again, and setting Sam's heart thumping again.

"It's okay Dean… just rest man…" he tried to comfort.

"No! Sam! Really Stop!... There's something…here…" he sat up peering out of the windshield into the darkness, his eyes searching the tree line for something.

Sam pulled over and put the car into park, adding his gaze to Dean's, "What're we looking for?" he asked while Dean shined the spotlight into the trees.

"I don't know… something… something's here…" he frowned a curious look.

"Something good or something bad?" Sam asked as Dean opened the door and slid out onto the shoulder of the road.

"Not bad…" he shook his head, "…not bad at all…" he closed his eyes and turned his face toward the trees, a warmth only he could feel coming down the hill toward him.

"Good Sam! Very good!" he grinned pumping his arms and legs and dashing into the darkness.

Sam shut off the lights, grabbed the keys and locked the car then moved around to the trunk where he hastily tucked a gun into his pants, stuck a knife into one pocket and a flashlight into the other then took off into the darkness after his brother.

_Damnit Dean! As if all this hasn't been freaky enough! Damn YOU!_ he cursed with a glance to the sky,_ he shouldn't be having visions, he shouldn't have to deal with this stuff! He's not equipped for it! This is MY burden, he shouldn't be subjected to it…_Sam thought, furious with whatever had seen fit to torment his brother like this, who, for all he knew, might be charging headlong to his own death right now.

"Dean…" he groaned a short time later. He drew to a halt, trying to track his brother by sound since there was almost no light to be had and his flashlight just wasn't cutting it.

"Sam!" he heard coming toward him from ahead and to his right, "Sammy keep that light up…."

"Dean!" he called moving toward the sound of his brother's voice. The crunching of brush and leaves came louder and Sam started to breathe again, wondering when exactly this nightmare was going to be over.

"Sam…" Dean sighed and winced when the flashlight beam lanced his eyes, slid off to the side and over something familiar and... blue... at his side.

"Hey Sam…" she croaked tiredly, turning and burying her face into his brother's side.

"Laura?!" he breathed disbelieving, moving the light up and down over her, at first not quite sure of what he was seeing. She was wearing the same flannel shirt Dean was wearing, even though Sam could see he was still wearing it…and she looked…

"Dude shut that freakin' thing off willya?" Dean grumbled holding her protectively to himself.

"Laura?" Sam breathed again.

"Yeah… it's me…" she nodded.

"Are you… blue?" he asked.

"Tired… very tired…" she muttered yawning and started to slide down Dean's side.

He bent and scooped her into his arms, "I gotcha honey… I gotcha…C'mon Sam… let's go…"

Dean settled her into the back seat, wrapped in the emergency blanket from the trunk and turned to face Sam, "What?"

"What makes you think she's really your Laura? If there were other Dean's out there, how do we know she's not a different Laura? It makes sense… she's freakin' BLUE Dean!"

"…and naked!" she called chuckling tiredly from the back seat, leaning her head on the door frame though she held her hands out in front of her, the tips of her fingers already returning to their natural pink, "…thank God it's fading…" she sighed wrapping herself tight into the blanket with a shiver.

"She's mine Sam…" Dean shook his head.

"How do you know?" Sam challenged.

"I feel it… besides… I'm the older brother and you KNOW what that means…" he smirked.

"You're always right?" Sam sighed frustrated.

"Exactly," Dean smacked his chest lightly.

Sam shook his head and shrugged, "Okay…for now… but it doesn't mean you're always right…"

"Yeah… it totally does…" Dean nodded sliding into the front seat, leaving Laura to sleep while they drove through the night.

--

"So Dean _was_ right?" Sam asked dumbfounded and trying to ignore his older brother's smirk across the table.

"Apparently so… at least from what the other Dean told me he'd figured out too…" she sipped the coffee smiling faintly at the return of her normal pink coloring.

"So those whole few days… all that pain he went through? All those horrible things he saw… there was nothing we could've done to change any of it?" Sam shook his head visibly upset.

"No… I… we tried to defend the Sidhe world… we couldn't… in the end all we could do was evacuate…I couldn't make a difference…" she shook her head.

"… did you see this… 'marauder'?" Dean asked squeezing her shoulder gently.

She bit her lip and looked between the two men, her silence sending shivers through them both.

"Laura? Was it the demon?" Sam asked.

Her chest rose and fell quickly, her breath coming in short speedy bursts as she looked between them, "That's just it... I saw this thing… and remember I met yours too… I met Big Bad the night he freed Morgan…this one had the same oily yellow eyes but… it felt different…"

"Different? How?" Dean asked sharing a glance with Sam.

"It shattered an entire _Universe_ Dean…the Sidhe 'universe' for want of a better term acted as a buffer between our world and some of the surrounding ones… as you already figured out… I think we're in real trouble…" her voice began to tremble as images of horrors from the last couple months scrolled before her minds' eye.

"How so?" Sam asked softly.

She took a breath and nodded, "I think the destruction of the Sidhe world was a field exercise of sorts… and I don't think it even cares about us, or the Sidhe, or any other living thing… the sense I got when it was near… the fiery-freezing hatred…" she looked between them. They were both waiting for her to say it, to make it real even though their finely honed instincts were already screaming at them.

"It's coming… I think it's coming for Big Bad and it doesn't care what gets in its way… and…" she stopped, chuckled a shaky huff and had to hold her cup with both hands to keep the trembling under control, "…and I think John was wrong…I don't think they're _just_ demons…"

--

John read the text message on his phone, 'Need to talk re: Dean… come to the office asap.'

Slowly his hand turned the knob and he entered the otherwise empty office. He'd been watching all day, counting the people in and out, making sure there were no police officers laying in wait for him.

"Come in John… we need to talk."

He nodded closing the door behind himself and sat on the couch, all sense of jeopardy temporarily suspended here in this place of sanctuary. This was the one place he felt safe, and without either of his son's left in his life, he was wondering if he could find a reason to continue. The fight against evil, and darkness, and dark supernatural beings seemed to have fizzled out of him. This was the only place left where he could have any kind of peace and those liquid eyes that had been giving him comfort, from the moment his boy had been brought in, comfort he was sure he didn't deserve.

He looked up feeling tears wanting to well up and knew this was one place he could cry, he could let those tears fall while he looked shamelessly, beseeching for some kind of solace into those shifting, oily yellow eyes.

--

End.

Please tell me what you think.

Love? Hate? I'd like to know.

Thanks.

sifi

--

And one more word of Thanks in particular to Nevermore for being the finest sounding board I could ask for during the writing of this particular fic. For her suggestions, help, pats on the back and kicks in the pants. Thanks Nevermore, my Poe-ian pillar of strength.

For Beist... your stalwart support, ego strokes and begging for more made me give you all I had... (boy doesn't that sound... odd) Anyway beloved you know what I'm saying... You've set the bar... now I only have to live up to it... smirk thanks:D

And thanks to all who've taken the time to read and review and who have stuck with this fic from beginning to end… if I've left anything too horribly uncertain please let me know what it is… maybe I'll use it in an upcoming fic. :D


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